Letter from Boston Research Trip To Japan By MASAKO YAMADA	フレームで見る  英文をプリントする  脚注をプリントする
日本への研究旅行 雅子さんが在籍する研究室では、しょっちゅう外国からの研究者を招き、海外との交流を行なっています。逆に、雅子さんたちボストン大学の研究員が、研究のため国外に出ることもよくあります。今回、雅子さんは、水の特性を研究するために来日し、茨城県筑波に10日間滞在しました。

My adviser, Gene Stanley, has a lot of colleagues scattered around the world. There always seem to be at least one or two foreign researchers visiting our lab.

Conversely, my adviser often goes abroad to universities and conferences to collaborate with other people. All of Gene's graduate students receive an annual travel budget and they are allowed to go abroad from a very early stage in their careers.

I've always known that Gene has many collaborators in Japan, and that he likes visiting them with his family. Osamu Mishima is one such researcher. He does water-related research at a national lab in Tsukuba. I've seen Mishima-san visit our lab a number of times. I also spent quite a bit of time with Mishima-san's colleague, Yoshiharu Suzuki, when he came to visit our lab last summer.

I recently took a 10-day trip to visit the lab of Mishima-san and Suzuki-san. A Japanese organization that grants money to scientific organizations funded my trip.

I am currently doing research on the properties of water using a technique called molecular dynamics. This is a method in which complex systems are simulated with a computer by turning them into simple models.

This is a good way to try to explain things that cannot be tested experimentally, but the problem is that there's no real way of knowing whether the models are correct. People who do computer simulations must always compare their results to the clues given by nature.

Mishima-san and Suzuki-san are focusing on a topic similar to mine, but they are experimentalists. Therefore, they are ideal collaborators. Although I know next to nothing about experimental physics — and only a bit more about theoretical physics — they were very patient.

Basically, they told me that they only expected me to catch a glimpse of what they are doing. I felt worried before visiting their lab because I felt that I couldn't contribute much to the collaboration. However, they put me completely at ease. Not only was I able to grasp what kind of research they are doing, I was also able to get some hands-on experience. Suzuki-san has trained many young students, so he had a good idea of what kind of tasks to give a beginner.

Toward the end of my stay, I knew how to handle the different pieces of equipment necessary to conduct our experiment. I enjoyed this greatly. It was satisfying to have a set of tasks to fulfill, and to see what kinds of results popped out in the end.

The most exciting part is that we got some new results that are worth pursuing in the future! I was expecting to work the entire time, since the visit was short and I was being paid to be there. News of the Japanese economy has recently been grim, and I envisioned a rather stark work atmosphere.

I didn't tell most of my friends and family in Japan that I was going, since I knew that I wouldn't be able to see them anyway. I was therefore surprised when I was told that nobody would be in the lab even if I went during the weekend.

I imagined that the hard working Japanese researchers would work late at night as well, but even on weekdays they left at a reasonable hour. I was told that this is a fairly recent phenomenon, the result of government pressure to have people work less.

This being the case, I visited friends and relatives during the weekend. I also went out for dinner every evening, and relaxed in my hotel room at night. Mishima-san hosted a dinner party at his home for me. Suzuki-san cheerfully ac cepted the role of scientific and social guide to Tsukuba.

Ironically, my schedule was more relaxed in Japan than in the States. My schedule in the States is completely free and I spend my time as I like, but knowing that my colleagues are in the lab late at night or on weekends makes me feel guilty. I especially feel this way when I know my adviser is working (which seems to be always). I think forcing everybody to take time off is a bit silly, but I liked not having the invisible pressure to work.

I've always believed that, as a rather Americanized young woman, I'd never be able to follow the strict mores of the Japanese workplace. However, the 10 days that I spent at this lab made me realize that it's not just blood, tears and sweat in Japan. I'm sure that Mishima-san and Suzuki-san bent over backward to accommodate me as their guest, and I felt very lucky to accept this kindness during my short stay.

Shukan ST: March 5, 1999

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