Hello, my name is Kazama and I am a first-year master’s student in Abe Laboratory. This is the fourth seminar of our laboratory, which has been held every Tuesday (excluding holidays) since October. Each week, a member of the laboratory serves as MC for the seminar and writes the report afterwards. This time, I, Kazama, am in charge of the fourth seminar (held on November 10), and I will be reporting on it in this blog.
As those of you who have read the past three reports (in both English and Japanese) may know, our seminar starting in September consists of two parts: a working-in-progress presentation by students and a binding session in the second half.
The first part is a working-in-progress presentation by students (research progress report). Taro (B4) and Pere (M1) were in charge of this session this time.
Taro’s research theme is the analysis of the Japanese tourism industry. The recent COVID-19 has restricted the movement of people not only in Japan, but also in other parts of the world, and this has had a major impact on the tourism industry. In this social context, he tries to conduct a detailed analysis of the economic background of the industry through input-output analysis. The input-output analysis is a policy evaluation method to measure the economic and industrial structure of a specific region and its economic ripple effects using statistical tables called “input-output table”, which is often used in Japanese public administration. This analysis makes it possible to show numerically how the tourism industry of a region will spill over to other industries in the region.
Analyzing the impact of COVID-19 on tourism in each region, and how the damage done to the tourism industry will spread to other industries in the region, will be very important in predicting the future of the industry in Japan. I am looking forward to the results of his research.
Pere’s research focuses on vegan and vegetarian diets. These diets are beyond the religious and ideological backgrounds, and are also being looked at as a way of life to address environmental issues. This is because they have the potential to help disrupt the current huge resource consumption in the production of meat for human consumption and the environmental impact of methane gas emitted by beef cattle and other animals. If meat consumption continues to increase at this rate, it is assumed that the environmental impact will continue to grow. Such a scenario is undesirable from an environmental sustainability point of view.
These dietary habits have become popular worldwide in recent years and are now spreading in Japan as well, but they are still very few in number. As a result, people who follow these diets carry a lot of social stigma in their daily lives as minorities. There is not much research on the social stigma of vegans and vegetarians, especially in Japan. Clarifying these issues is not only important for minorities, but also for us in terms of environmental issues and food sustainability.
In the Keyword Session, the key words for the two presentations were discussed together, and then we moved on to the Bonding Session.
In the Bonding Session, the MC of the day can freely choose a topic for the presentation. This time’s topic was “Places you want to visit and things you want to do with our lab members”.
Due to COVID-19, we have not been able to get together as a group since the beginning of this year. There are still some members who have not been able to come to Japan. I set up this topic in the hope that the members of our laboratory can imagine doing something other than research together and that this will make them think about themselves a little.
Everyone suggested various things. I suggested a theme park, but many others said they wanted to hike in nature or go to the seaside, such as Enoshima or Odaiba. I think the reason why there were so many of these suggestions is due to the fact that the corona situation is still not under control and we are still in the house most of the time. I hope that one day we can all go on a trip together. Some of them said, “I’d love to go to a Chinese restaurant near my college with everyone else!”, so when we can get together at the university, I am planning a dinner party and hope to deepen our interaction.
It was reported the other day that an effective vaccine against corona has finally been completed, but we don’t know what will happen yet. I would like to conclude this report by praying that this pandemic will be brought under control as soon as possible so that the number of people suffering from this disease will be reduced.
