The Amami symposium - A little personal report

Hi zusammen, 

this is Ida an exchange student from Germany, currently doing a research internship at AORI.

This is a timy little report about my participation at the Amami symposium held in November this year at Amami Oshima. The symposium brought together scientists and local people and consisted of various speeches, a panel discussion, and a poster presentation. The poster presentation featured 12 scientists and 8 students from a local high school presenting their research.

As this was the first symposium I participated in, it felt like a great setting to gain some initial experiences, meet people in this field of research, and gain insights into research in Japan. Although I’m learning Japanese, my comprehension is still quite basic, and especially in the scientific context, it’s definitely まだまだです. 

Although I experimented with Google Translate, I had some difficulties following the content of the speeches. Depending on the person speaking, and especially on the amount of text on the slides, it was sometimes easier, sometimes harder to follow.  Even though I would always agree that slides shouldn’t contain too much text, in this case I was quite happy about full slides, which I could translate using Google Lens ;) Additionally, I gained some confidence on the second day and was able to talk to some of the speakers after their speeches, to get a mini-English summary and the opportunity to ask some questions, which was a great opportunity.

In the beginning, I was quite intimidated talking to new people due to my lack of experience regarding cultural and social rules in this new setting, my basic level of Japanese and the fact that a lot of people seemed to know each other already. After the first day, a joint dinner, and a little boost in self-confidence, I got to talk to more people on the second day and had the opportunity to also talk to some local people like, for example, a woman working for the local newspaper. I really like the idea of bringing local people and scientists together, and I wished I could have talked even more to people from Amami. 

 

The poster presentation went well and ended up being quite lively. Preparing the poster in advance already taught me a lot about how to structure and present my own scientific ideas. On the first day, the explanation of the poster was mostly in English, and it felt like a good practice to talk about research with new people. It got better with each time presenting, and I’m grateful that I was able to have the experience in this setting without much pressure. On the second day, we presented our posters again in front of some of the high school students. This again challenged my Japanese skills, but it was a lot of fun, and with a lot of Katakana English Japanese, some help from a very kind English teacher, and some laughs we got there in the end. I think the vocabulary I was missing the most might have been 放射性炭素 (radiocarbon). I can recommend looking up some basic words in advance, but even without, it somehow worked out and we got to laugh a lot.

 

On both days, we went to a joint dinner together. For me, this was one of the most impressive experiences. The culture of eating out and drinking together after work was already a new experience for me as a non-Japanese student. Especially impressive was getting to hear the島歌 (island songs) accompanied by traditional local instruments, the 三線 (a three-string instrument), and even being able to try the instruments ourselves. We were highly recommended to learn to play the 三線, as you’re supposed to be able to learn it in only one month. The local food was amazing too, and even being vegetarian there was plenty of different flavorful food to try.

During the symposium, we also got to talk a little bit about the organization and brainstormed on how it might be possible to make the event even a little more diverse in the upcoming years. I really like the idea of holding the symposium in Amami and therefore making it accessible to local people and especially high-school students. I would have been interested to hear even more the perspectives of local people in the speeches (e.g., about topics like: ‘How has climate change affected Amami in the last few years?’ or ‘How to find a balance between tourism and preservation?’). However, I might have also missed parts of that due to the language barrier. I think it is essential as s scientists to learn from local people and focus on incoporating a local and culturaly sensitive perspective. 

I was also wondering how far it might be possible to invite more women as speakers to create a balance between women and men speaking. If possible, I think it would be great to encourage even more young students to participate too, as I think this is a great setting to gain first experience, get some first contacts, and receive feedback on one’s own work. This might change the dynamics a little bit but could make exchange between different groups of people and approaching new people a little easier, as it could mix up the group dynamics a bit. As diversity in (natural) sciences is a topic that I’m also very interested in, I would be very interested to brainstorm together and think of different possible approaches.

At the end this trip also helped me to get to know some new people and grow closer to friends I knew already before. I got the best teachers for revising kanji and explaining Japanese grammar and even found somebody who would run into the ocean together during a warm rainy day. I would like to thank everybody who participated, organized and contributed to this event and who made this experience possible. It was a pleasure to participate, and I’m glad I got the opportunity to have had this experience.