Dialogue to the Future: Interviews with a New Generation of Researchers in the AJI

Fifth Interview

Interview with Dr. LEE Jinhye

Interviewer: For my first question, could you tell me what led you to decide on a career as a researcher?

Lee: Rather than having a clear reason for choosing a career as a researcher, I feel that the environment in which I grew up paved the way for me to become a researcher. For example, I had a lot of different kinds of books at home since I was a child. This environment made reading a book a natural part of my play, and I enjoyed putting my impressions of reading books into my words. I have an older sister who became a writer, and she likes books more than I do. I have a vivid memory of my sister reading a book alone when she was a child. I find more enjoyment in writing down my thoughts after reading a book than in the act of reading itself. When I come across something I don’t quite understand, I enjoy reading related books to clear up any doubts. Throughout my middle school, high school, and college years, while studying English, Japanese, and Kazakh, exploring new worlds through these languages was truly an enlightening experience, and it inspired me to pursue a career in research. Especially during my undergraduate years, I came across many new things I didn’t know in some classes. These experiences led me to realize my interest in research and the pursuit of knowledge.

Interviewer: It’s quite impressive that you have been a book enthusiast since childhood. Also, you mentioned the Kazakh language, and you specialize in studying an ethnic minority in Kazakhstan. I’m curious, what inspired you to choose this research topic? How did it come about it?

Lee: Following the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, Kazakhstan declared its independence and pursued its national unity with Kazakhs as the central ethnic group. However, the process of nation-building has also taken on the diverse ethnic composition of the Soviet era. Kazakhstan is a diverse country with over 130 ethnic groups, including the Korean diaspora known as Koryo Saram. This ethnic minority comprises 0.6% of Kazakhstan's population. During the period of the Soviet Union's dissolution and the subsequent independence of its former republics, society was thrown into chaos. Each country faced the challenge of establishing national unity in its own way. Fortunately, Kazakhstan has not witnessed any ethnic clashes since gaining independence. However, I am concerned about the state of national unity and the treatment of minority groups, particularly the Koryo Saram community.

Interviewer: I was unaware of the Korean community in Kazakhstan. Can you share more about your connections with the Koryo Saram?

Lee: During my undergraduate and master's studies, I had the opportunity to visit Kazakhstan multiple times for language training, exchange programs, and interpretation work. Throughout the course of this undertaking, I had valuable interactions with the individuals from Koryo Saram. Initially, I regarded them as my comrades or fellow Koreans from a Korean perspective. When I met them, I was surprised to learn that despite sharing the same surnames as Koreans, looking similar, and eating kimchi, we had nothing else in common. I would say it is like having kimchi with a foreign person named Kim. Despite their Korean background, I found that we had no common ground. In a case study of Korean Studies in Japan, a Korean living in Japan started their study by identifying similarities with local people through visits to Korea. In contrast, during my time in Kazakhstan, I encountered a Korean person with whom I shared no common interests, sparking my current research. During my master's and doctoral studies in graduate school, I specialized in "ethnic minority issues in Kazakhstan" based on advice from my supervisors.

Interviewer: It is an interesting discovery and experience. I heard that you frequently use Kazakh in your research. However, in Japan, it's hard to grasp the Kazakh language’s nature.

Lee: This question is frequently posed. The word order in Kazakh is the same as that of Japanese and Korean. However, Japanese and Korean are also languages of the Chinese character culture, while Kazakh belongs to the Turkic language family. Kazakh uses 33 Russian letters of Slavic origin and 9 Kazakh letters, totaling 42 letters. Since 2017, Kazakhstan has been transitioning from the Russian Cyrillic alphabet to the Latin alphabet. However, many people still use Cyrillic. Right after gaining independence, the foundation of the Kazakh language was weak due to historical reasons, and there were not a large number of Kazakhs who could speak the language. Since 1995, Kazakhstan has had two official languages, Kazakh and Russian. The Language Act has undergone several revisions before and after independence, with a particular focus on changing the status of the Russian language.

Interviewer: I understand that the language system in Kazakhstan is currently in transformation. How did you learn Kazakh?

Lee: For my undergraduate years in Korea, I enrolled in the Department of Central Asian Languages to study Kazakh. At that time, Kazakhstan was a relatively unknown country in Korea, so learning its language was not easy. I spent the first month of school memorizing the pronunciation of the Kazakh alphabet. At the time, there was little demand for learning Kazak in Korea, so materials were limited, unlike for English, Japanese, Chinese, and Spanish. So, I just kept relying on textbooks and dictionaries to learn Kazakh. The textbooks were not translated into Korean but were Kazakh materials available in Kazakhstan and explained in Russian, and I used both the Kazakh-English and English-Kazakh dictionaries. I was a second-term student in the department, and now I hope that current juniors are studying Kazakh in a better environment. In this way, I completed my first spring semester in Korea, and during my summer vacation, I underwent a five-week language training program in Kazakhstan. Also, in my third year, I spent a year in Almaty as an exchange student and learned Kazakh locally. During my time in Kazakhstan, I fully embraced the local culture and was able to learn the Kazakh language through immersion. I believe now that living in a country's society is the most effective approach to acquiring its language. Since then, I have gained diverse experience by participating in international events in both Korea and Kazakhstan. Since studying in Japan, I have improved my Kazakh language skills by reading research materials and conducting field research.

Interviewer: I understand from your stories that the Kazakh language is a very difficult language to learn, especially in the East Asian region. How is your research life in Japan? Please tell us about your experiences, including studying in Japan.

Lee: Sure. I arrived in Japan in 2013, became a seminarian for two years, and earned my doctoral degree in 2019. When I was a seminarian, my goal was to enter a doctoral program, and when I did, my goal was to get a degree. In 2020, I was adopted as a foreign PD by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science. When I reflect on the process in my field, I believe that Japan provides ample opportunities for motivated and capable individuals. As a researcher, I have had the opportunity to meet excellent seniors and peers who have guided and inspired me in various ways, despite having different research fields and specialties. I was able to dedicate myself to my research theme with great passion thanks to this relationship. Also, even my Korean acquaintances who experienced their research life in Japan before me often tell me that Japan has a better research environment not only in science and engineering but also in the field of humanities and sociology. Yes, that’s true.

Interview: You came to Japan to study for a doctoral program. I think you also use Japanese in your research. Please tell us about your experiences with the difference between Korean and Japanese.

Lee: During my time studying Japanese in Korea, I had initially believed that this language would share many similarities with Korean, given their common Chinese character culture. In fact, Japanese kanji expressions are frequently used word-for-word in Hangul readings. However, this was only partly true. When I moved to Japan, I discovered that Japanese has numerous noun-verb combinations that don't exist in Korean. In addition, the fact that English words in Japan are often pronounced in a Japanese way, known as Japanese-made English, is not commonly used in Korea and vice versa. Learning about this requires a multi-faceted approach. In order to learn how to express myself in Japanese, I have made various efforts such as actively conversing with individuals I have become close to while working part-time, repeatedly watching a drama (with reduced subtitles or without them), and watching the news. While primarily learning Japanese through text, I gradually distinguished between expressions used by gender, colloquial and literary styles, and clichés through these efforts. Nonetheless, it’s still hard to remember Japanese expressions like adjectives, particles, and adverbs.

Interviewer: I can imagine that learning contextual nuances that are not visible must be very challenging.

Lee: It may be obvious, but I think that flexibility in using Japanese expressions is key for non-native speakers. Also, based on my experience, I find it interesting that people tend to learn a foreign language using the thinking habits formed by their mother tongue, which can be observed in their speech. For example, I felt that Japanese people who often use the Japanese word “honestly (Shojiki ni; 正直に)” often use the Korean expression “솔직히 (soljjiki)” when they speak in Korean. English people who often use “seriously” as their mother tongue often use the Russian expression “Серьезно говорю (seryozna govaryu).” When I speak in my native Korean, I often use the expressions “응 (eung),” “어 (eo),” and “실제로 (siljjero).” I often use the same words “えっと(etto)” and “実際に (Jissai-ni)” when speaking in Japanese, and the same words “um” and “actually” when speaking in English.

Interviewer: I can see it clearly. Learning a foreign language won't eradicate the habit of speaking your native language. Could you provide more information on your recent research interests?

Lee: My research focuses on the ethnic issues in Kazakhstan and the ways in which multiethnic coexistence can be achieved. Since independence, Kazakhstan's national unity has progressed in two significant directions. That is, Kazakh-centrism and multiethnic coexistence. The aim of my study is to explore how ethnic minorities have adapted to changes in national integration policy following the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the emergence of newly independent states. I focus especially on the example of the Korean Diaspora to examine contemporary multiethnic coexistence in Kazakhstan.

From now on, I would like to draw on my previous research on Koryo Saram in Kazakhstan and compare it with Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan in order to study multiethnic coexistence in Central Asia. I would like to analyze the characteristics of national unity, media environments, and Koryo Saram's ethnic media in three different countries.

Interviewer: Your research will expand from Kazakhstan to comparing Central Asian countries. I am excited about this. What do you find interesting about your research these days?

Lee: I have had a variety of experiences since becoming a postdoc in 2020. Prior to obtaining my Ph.D., my focus was completing my dissertation. Now that my postdoc is finished, I am considering how to progress my research and improve my future work. As a researcher, while I feel it’s a bit late for this attitude to start now, I would like to use it as a starting point for further research development. I remember a professor in Korea telling me, “Research is a profession of reading, writing, and listening. If you can't write, read. If you can't read, listen to talks.” While conducting research, I seek insights by listening to and reading about research in other fields. Of course, understanding research in other fields is not easy, but the process of learning new things is very interesting. In the future, I would like to broaden my horizons and use the insights from my research in various fields to further my research.

Interviewer: You have come to see the development of your research in your awareness of your academic career. Also, the mindset of learning from other fields overlaps with your childhood attitude, as you first mentioned, and I think that this attitude of yours seems to be growing more and more. What are your future plans?

Lee: In the 2022 academic year, I was hired as a senior researcher at Ritsumeikan University, and in the next year, I became an assistant professor. While working as a postdoctoral fellow at the Ritsumeikan Asia-Japan Research Institute after earning my doctoral degree, I gained valuable experience through organizing workshops, publishing booklets, presenting research papers, and giving guest speeches. As a new researcher, I aim to leverage my prior experience to further develop my research. And giving lectures is a new experience for me, but I will do my best to learn from it.

And finally, last January (2022), major protests erupted in Kazakhstan due to the increasing cost of liquefied petroleum gas fuel. As a researcher studying Kazakhstan, I faced the question of what I could do in response to the events that occurred in the city of Almaty - a place I had become familiar with during my fieldwork - and the resulting casualties. As a researcher, I consider my public role and question the legitimacy of Kazakhstan's long-term dictatorship, the necessity for the regime to incorporate group and citizen demands for democracy and societal improvement, and the acceptable level of sacrifice for democracy and progress. For example, the role of a news announcer is to report incidents and accidents objectively. What about researchers? From now on, I am eager to learn what it is like to be an educator and researcher at Ritsumeikan University and discover what my public role is. I also think I can learn about what this role is by meeting people. What I am going to do is focus on those things. As a next-generation researcher, I believe it's important to consider the public role of research while fulfilling immediate concerns.

Interviewer: It was very exciting talk, and I am looking forward to seeing what kind of research will be produced in the future from your attitude of facing very actual matters and to your growing research.