I had an operation for uterine fibroid and polyp removal on March 17. As the operation was simple, it was one-day hospitalization. I put off the operation for a year because I could not care about it because I had a doctoral dissertation. However, I got a surprisingly big bleeding one day before submission of my doctoral dissertation and made a quick re-check and　reservation for an operation.     Hospitalization in Japan was the first for me. I was hospitalized in South Korea ten years ago. So, I would like to compare hospitalization in Japan with that in South Korea in this essay. Korean university hospitals are something like busy complexes, and doctors and nurses seem to have lots to do and give only glances at patients. However, the hospital in the suburbs of Tokyo, where I was hospitalized this time, made me relax. I do not know why. They gave me their maximum attention despite their busy schedules. According to a Korean lady who has lived in Japan for more than twenty years, she was rejected to have an operation in Japanese hospitals and finally changed to a big hospital in Korea to have an operation. It is said that Korean hospitals weigh heavily on operations for the purpose of showing off their careers, and Japanese hospitals tend to avoid operations as much as possible. When we compare the clinical environment in Korea and Japan, we can find out their cultural tendencies: Korean hospitals value operations, while Japanese hospitals value care and nursing.   When I answered a medical questionnaire, I noticed a big difference between the usual medical checkup and ‘the assumed physical condition of the patient’. When I answered a medical questionnaire that asked me about my clinical history, usual pains and prosthesis, if any, I could imagine the daily life of elderly people and their speed a little. How are medical questionnaires used in other areas?   Since I started my study at graduate school in Japan, it has become my habit to observe everything through my ‘cultural comparison lens’ and contemplate the next research theme, though I could not reach any effective thinking. The meaning of ‘difference’ in experience between this time and ten years before was personal, and it may come from differences in disease and operation method. Or my memory might fade away because ten years have already passed. Such experiences as the operation and hospitalization I had as ‘different things’, may become important mental food for my future life. What kind of memory shall I keep? How do you imagine such memories? Such thinking will have ‘the power’ to make my experience.   The most memorable thing is waking up from the anesthetics. Ten years ago, when I woke up from the anesthetic, I was brought to the recovery room and left alone for thirty minutes, and I felt horribleness and the cold in the recovery room. Such feelings might make me hesitate to get an operation. However, I was moved to ‘my’ sickroom (my personal place) after the operation and could be relaxed this time. I had a mysterious and foggy happy feeling, which was confused with a daydream that I wanted to read any books when I sat up. I thought it unnecessary to be afraid of ‘general anesthetics’ hereafter.   Though the operation finished at noon, I did not take a nap, worrying about sleepless nights. I kept reading books or looking video on YouTube in the afternoon. I read a book called ‘Think/Classify Sociology in Daily Life’ (by Georges Perec). In this book, he classifies ‘reading (action)’ in connection with ‘human Body’ and ‘surroundings(circumstances)’ in ‘Reading: A Social and Psychological Sketch’. As to ‘surroundings’, he classifies ‘time (while waiting for something)’, ‘means of transport’ and ‘others (like hospitalization)’. However, I think those factors are connected. It is ‘the time during which we wait for night’ or ‘the long flight time that has physical non-movement’. It is a long flight (from passage to recovery) toward the destination (discharge). I initially mistook it for ‘reading’. I had a feeling very often that I did not like to get off, even when I took a short flight or ride. The expression that processes are more important than purposes is not only an example of metaphor.   When I was in the hospital, I read the book “Wake Up! You, a freshman!” written by the late Kenzaburo Ooe. ‘Mr. H’, who is fighting diseases, said to ‘I’, ‘in the process of our lives, you may hurt others, or you may be hurt by others. And you may try to quit during your lifetime. However, those questions cannot be settled during your lifetime. You will end up being allowed by the others whom you have hurt. Of course, you allow the others. There will be no choice.’   In this novel, ‘I’ who have a handicapped son, read and rely on a poem written by William Blake, an English poet, to overcome the fear of living his life. ‘My’ fear is that my son will live alone after my death. For ‘myself’, not only reading but also writing a novel is an itinerary for ‘overcoming’. Of course, fears for living are not ‘the slate that can be cleaned’. However, when you read ‘words’ which record the appearance of relying on ‘words’, you can step forward in your future with courage and hope.   The hospital ward is very quiet, and I had to refrain from keyboard sounds. At midnight, I could hear the cry of a newborn baby. There is a stone monument in front of the hospital and the words of the Gospel John are engraved: “I am resurrection, and I am life”.      SGRA Kawaraban 741 in Japanese (Original)     AHN Eun-byul/ 2022 Raccoon, Doctoral Course at the University of Tokyo     Translated by Kazuo Kawamura English checked by Sabina Koirala                                                   

AI (artificial intelligence) is a word that Professor John McCarthy, a computer scientist and cognitive scientist, suggested in 1956. It is defined as “science and technology that can make intellectual machines, especially intellectual computer programs”. At present, research on AI has progressed, and definitions of AI differ depending on scientists and their fields. Automation and streamlining in various fields are facilitated by AI. For example, autonomous driving of automobiles, inspection of defective products, and detection of unauthorized entries on credit cards. Those technologies are fulfilled by the acquisition and study of large quantities of information through the recognition and reading of pictures and voices by computers. As we can use ChatGPT without any professional knowledge, it is now a worldwide topic. It can generate, summarize, and collect information through natural communication, conversation or sentences with other people automatically.   My research field is organic chemistry. As a new current in the development of chemical reactions, the utilization of machine learning and data science is drawing attention. At present, the development of an asymmetric catalyst that can control the three-dimensional chemistry of data science under the trials and errors of researchers is ranked as a challenge in organic synthesis. I have been working at my doctoral course on building and demonstrating methodologies that adopt machine learning to the system design of stereoscopic branched type asymmetric catalysts that supply complex molecules to green. I succeeded in the efficient development of a complicated but new catalyst system and could realize the convenience of AI.   On the other hand, many people began to worry that the development of AI will take away the work of human beings. At present, AI is specialized in specific issues, like the solution of simulated or mathematically modeled issues. However, when singularity (technical singular point: at the time of new AI, which is at the same level as the brains of human beings) will get near in the near future, AI will alternate what only human beings can do, and it is the big change in the living environment of human beings. It is likely that AI will be applied not only to simple tasks like cleaning and delivery, but also to professional fields like medical and financial services.   Then, in a technologically advanced period, what kind of AI works that cannot be alternated are there? In principle, when we reach ‘singularity’, computers can keep the same or higher-level knowledge with human beings. As computers can reduce work and human errors, we can realize cost reduction and efficiency improvements comparing with human beings. However, there is a possibility that such ‘no-mistake’ perfectness becomes a demerit. For example, take the case of kindergarten teachers. If we set up AI, AI will teach students knowledge or manners, and play with them. However, kindergarten period is important for students’ growth, and it is essential for their formation of characters and sociality that they know emotion and mistake mistakes that ‘human being teachers’ commit unconsciously. If we introduce ‘AI teachers’, it will be difficult for kindergarten students to obtain a suitable lifetime rhythm for their ages.   AI technologies are progressing rapidly. It may take a long time to reach ‘singularity’. But it is an important issue how human beings coexist with AI and complement each other’s.     SGRA Kawaraban 740 in Japanese (Original)     Chen-Hongyu, 2022 Raccoon, Researcher at Otsuka Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd.              Translated by Kazuo Kawamura English checked by Sabina Koirala

My research life started in 2008, when I encountered a study on “Aesthetics” in Japan. It is not easy to define “aesthetics” in short. If I would like to explain straight forward how human beings acknowledge ‘beautifulness’, and ‘sensibility’ at that moment. So, every deed done by human beings can be an object, and its scope is infinite. For such reasons, the center of discussion about ‘aesthetics’ would sometimes be ideology or art, depending on the time or country. As the definition of art is being diversified, as mentioned above, it is possible to make research like this essay. As an example, let’s study AI music from an aesthetic viewpoint.   If you put a lot of music into an AI system, it would make similar and new music by analyzing original data. For example, “AI Composer Emily Howell” composed by David Cope, can produce a lot of music in a short time based on the old composing style of Beethoven or Mahler. In the field of popular music, a research team led by Ahn Chang-Wook under the Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology in Korea developed “AI Composer EvoM”, and various popular songs including K-pop. Against such AI music, regardless of academic or non-academic field, public opinion has shown its interest in such scientific and technological aspects of AI as its historic, scientific potential and commercial value. Moreover, such controversies have recently extended to the field of ‘post-humanism’ like social and ethical issues, and aesthetic and philosophical fields by environmental philosophers.   We can re-consider, from the relationship between AI music and human beings, “creativity” which is one of the main concepts of “aesthetic”. In the evaluation of AI music in classical music (western artistic music), it is criticized as poor tasting songs that imitate songs by great classical composers simply. When I listen to AI music, I think its quality is much inferior to ‘music by human beings’. However, such criticism may be caused by the creativity of ‘human music’, which has been controversial since the latter half of the18th century. At that time, the concept of ‘genius’ or ‘originality’ rose, and the composition using existing music, which has continued since the Middle Ages, was criticized.   Namely, borrowing behavior itself means no originality. For example, the citation technique of Gustav Mahler, composer of the post-romanticism era, was related to ‘Jewishness’ (negative meaning), and its originality was suspected. Such a tendency lasted until the modernism of the 1950s and 1960s. For composers and critics who asked for novelty, the use of adjusted music means ‘return to the past’, and quoting the behavior of existing music means ‘dirty music’.   Deliberation for ‘creativity’ in AI music may become the start of this issue. Against various aesthetic questions for AI music, like 1) What is creativity? 2) What is the function of a composer? 3) What is work? 4) How do listeners react? The answers would be the following: When you input information into AI, it is ‘human composers’ that select information, and, on the other hand, it is AI that creates new music. As David Cope mentioned above, even if ‘human composers’ collect, select, and input information, AI will produce unexpected results.   From the theory mentioned above, I can say that AI has ‘originality’. According to David Cope, it does not depend on human inspiration alone but arises from another factor like a machine. And ‘originality’ does not come from anything but the context that comes around ‘originality’. ‘Originality’ comes from the composition of works that other people have done. Furthermore, it must rely on the judgement, for or against, of other people who accept or reject the things that are aesthetic. We can find such insistence of Cope in the process of creation, not in the result of works of ‘originality’. Such discussion about the ‘originality’ of AI marks an important beginning for understanding the ‘originality’ of human beings. It gives us the big suggestion that we create something new from nothing, and we can review our attitude toward appreciation, which is bound by modern mythology.     SGRA Kawaraban 739 in Japanese (Original)     CHO You Kyung /2021 Raccoon, Postgraduate student at the University of Tokyo     Translated by Kazuo Kawamura English checked by Sabina Koirala       

I am writing a doctoral thesis now and feel mentally tired quite often. Even if I do not write a doctoral thesis, there are so many dreadful things in the world. There are various ways of healing. It is effective for me to go out to beautiful and calm nature spots that are not so congested. When I go to such places and breathe deeply, I can relax mentally and physically. I feel heartwarming and think “Let us work more and harder!”   I could finish my doctoral thesis because I went to such places once a week last year. So, I would like to introduce such healing spots from my experience.   Firstly, I recommend going to the Institute for Nature Study and the National Museum of Nature and Science in Shirokane (very close to Tokyo METRO station). It is not well known among international students and is different from other parks in Tokyo. It is a real forest, not a garden like Koishikawa Koraku-en Garden or Shinjuku Gyo-en (the National Garden). There are passes and bridges for taking a walk, and various plants are growing like forests. We can forget being in Tokyo because tall trees are standing to hide towns. We cannot enjoy such feelings without going to the mountains, which take three hours to reach. It is just a place where we can enjoy walking, forgetting our daily lives.   We can enjoy its beauty every season, but the time of the autumn leaves is the best. There are many gardens or temples that are famous for their autumn leaves, and the leaves of those trees are pruned so that they do not grow tall. However, the trees in the Institute of Nature Study are not pruned and there are a lot of tall autumn trees. I think it is the only place in Tokyo where we can enjoy tall, red autumn trees. If you would like to enjoy walking, I recommend you go to the Tokyo Metropolitan Teien Art Museum. You can enjoy modern architecture and history there, and the garden is very beautiful.     I recommend you secondarily to go to Sankeien in Yokohama. Minato-MIRAI and Yamashita-Park, both in Yokohama, are famous. But I will be tired more because those places are popular spots. Sankeien, however, is located in a quiet place, ten minutes by bus from Yamashita Park, and is not crowded. It was released by a businessperson named Hara Sankei in 1906, and it is very big and worth walking. It is very beautiful, especially when plum blossoms are fully bloomed. Harbor views of Tokyo Bay from Sankeien are good also. The most highlighted one is its buildings, which were relocated from Kyoto and Kamakura. All of them are valuable historically, and I recommend them to people who like to know Japanese architecture and history. You can see many luxurious houses around Sankeien and may be interested in modern architecture while taking strolls.   The last place that I recommend is the place where I would like you to go in cherry blossom season. Some people may dislike going to famous spots that are famous for their cherry blossoms because of their crowded conditions. But the cherry blossoms alongside the Shakujii-River is different. Its beauty is just the same as that of the Meguro-River. But the Shakujii-River side is not so crowded. The river is very long, but I recommend you take the course between Otonashi-Shinsui Park (Sound Nothingness Water Park) which is very near Oji-Station (Tokyo Metro), and Naka-Itabashi Station (Tobu-Tojyo Line). The park is strange or peculiar because this river was constructed using the old waterway of the Shakujii River. It is worth going only for this reason. When you walk along the river, you can enjoy cherry blossoms for five kilometers. As there are no Yatai (food stands) and few people like Meguro-River, you can enjoy cherry blossom while being relaxed. You will be healed fantastically if you walk while watching cherry blossoms and listening to your favorite music.      You may feel persistent stress every day. But let’s refresh and heal ourselves yourself by watching beautiful scenery.      SGRA Kawaraban 737 in Japanese (Original)     Oksana KAKIN / 2021 Raccoon     Translated by Kazuo Kawamura English checked by Sabina Koirala

SGRA Sustainable Shared Growth Seminar 37 Report East Asian Dynamics Posted: May 2023 Organized By: College of Public Affairs and Development/University of the Philippines Los Baños; Institute for Northeast Asian Future; and Sekiguchi Global Research Association/Atsumi International Foundation Seminar Report (Lite Version) (HD Version available on request from editor)