Hello! We had our fifth meeting of this year on June 10th over Zoom.
Here is the summary of the meeting.
Kazama san and Natasha san, both M2 students, made their presentations.
Kazama san’s research objective is to investigate the relationship between electricity policies, especially on the establishment of local electricity retailers (LERs), and the social issues that local governments face. He shared with us the results of his analysis so far.
Natasha san’s research objective is to evaluate the resource-use efficiency of Indonesian provinces and facilitate policy formulation on efficiency improvement. She also investigates the factors that explain the differences in efficiency. She shared her progress since her last presentation last month.
The topic of the bonding session was “Please tell us an interesting/beautiful/funny word or expression in your native language and what it means (preferably a word or expression an English translation for which does not exist).” We had so many interesting responses, and I will list some examples below.
ไม่เป็นไร / mai pen rai (Thai) – a phrase that means “it’s okay” and is very commonly used. It represents the leniency of Thai people.
хийморь / Khiimori (Monglian) – a word that literally or semantically means “gas horse or wind horse,” and refers to luck, fate, and/or soul, but cannot be translated exactly. It is used in everyday conversation to refer to luck or human behavior.
○○しか勝たん / [sth] shika katan (Japanese) – an expression that directly means “only sth wins.” For example, if you believe ramen is superior and is the best for you, you would say “Ramen shika katan.”
Ngabuburit (tradition in Indonesia, the word comes from Sudanese) – a word that refers to the time before sunset during Ramadan. After the sunset everyone gets to finally eat, so ngabuburit is the time when everyone gets excited about eating and goes out to buy food and make other preparations.
(Written by Meg Niki)
