What is the common between a Thai film and dissemination of research results in non-English-speaking countries

This summer in Japan, I had a chance to watch my very first Thai film, its called “One For The Road '' and was produced by one and only Hong Kong film Producer Kar-Wai Wong, which made me even more excited about watching this. Its story begins with the road trip of Aood who has not much longer to live for leukemia and his best friend Boss. They travel and see Aood’s ex-girlfriends to say goodbye for one last time before his passing. Although some of the exes refuse to see him or come down hard on him, the more time has gone since the breakup, the more women have opened up to him, which might indicate that time heals all wounds.

>While it goes sentimental in the first half, the latter half puts a spotlight on Aood’s best friend Boss who was born rich and frivolous, which emphasizes Aood’s lonliness and his sense of loss. Overall, it was sophisticated entertainment in my opinion. Please click here for more information(https://gaga.ne.jp/puan/)

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＜Their vehicle easily fails the safety inspection in Japan…＞

The main casts are made up of Thai-Chinese, is that for Chinese market? Also, this film hardly portrays “Thai-ness” by showing its culture or specialities. That made me wonder if it could be shot in Japan as well but could also be their strategy for this film to be embraced overseas (Or for any country to remake this story without any discomfort). Production crews paid attention to the details, speaking of scene transitions and camera works, it would be no doubt even if they were calculating enough to do so.

What Asia-Japan Research Institute does :

So, as you see in the title of this column, I was watching this film thinking about Japanese researchers promoting their academic research. I wouldn’t watch this film without being attracted by “Produced by Kar-Wai Wong” and its level of completeness is not that high but the film like “One For The Road”, the films are created by major production companies, which make it possible to reach a wider audience such as being released at many theaters, turned into DVDs or if you subscribe the streaming services, you will be able to watch them for free. On the other hand, some excellent works created by not-so-famous productions are not the same case, I assume.

In the academic world, English is our common language. For this reason, the excellent papers published in Japanese are not often recognized by International researchers and enable them to be co-authors. Thus, AJI provides various supporting programs to share the research achievement with the world in English by publishing English academic journals and introducing AJI Advanced Research Programs (https://en.ritsumei.ac.jp/research/aji/news_letter/staff_office/?essay_id=27) for the next generations.

How to Tell the World:

According to “Japanese Science and Technology Indicators 2022” by NISTEP (National Institute of Science and Technology Policy), whereas the number of academic papers published by Japanese researchers in a year ranks 5th in the world after China, the US, the UK and Germany, it drops to 12th when it comes to the number of times cited,“Top 10% Cited Papers”, which is pointed out as an issue of Japanese research activity to enhance its international status. However, their national research capability should not be measured by these numbers.

In addition to supporting the research promotion in English, AJI reviews and introduces the books written on not only Japanese but other Asian languages that are related to Asian studies, Japanese studies and Asian and Japanese studies There are many excellent works written in the languages other than English and we are trying to bring them to the attention of international researchers. And just as I am now becoming interested in watching other films directed by Baz Poonpiriya, who Kar-Wai Wong has discovered, and wondering what other Thai directors are making, AJI mission is to bring the researchers from other countries to know and become interested in the achievements of Asian and Japanese researchers, that leads to further development of Asia and Japanese studies.

Just as “One For The Road” is looking at the global market and trying various ways to make this film available to the film fans all around the world, there should be more that the university research support team can do to encourage the researchers to tell the world.

Links

NISTEP (National Institute of Science and Technology Policy). “Japanese Science and Technology Indicators 2022”
https://www.nistep.go.jp/en/

From Director’s office
https://en.ritsumei.ac.jp/research/aji/news_letter/director_office/?essay_id=6

Journal of the Asia-Japan Research Institute of Ritsumeikan University latest edition https://en.ritsumei.ac.jp/research/aji/publication/journal/　(Refer to Book Reviews)

Asia-Japan Research Academic Bulletin latest edition https://en.ritsumei.ac.jp/research/aji/publication/academic_bulletin/　(Refer to Book Reviews)