Internationalizing KEK: the Early Days Cultural Differences You

Vol.6 No.1 Internationalizing KEK: The Early Days Cultural differences you would encounter in Japan Child Education in Japan Living in Japan Congratulations to Prof. Koshiba for his being awarded a Nobel prize KEK News The Early Days Internationalizing KEK: The Early Days In recent times, the number of foreign researchers and the level of international activity at KEK is rather high. This has not always been the case. In 1982, when I first came to KEK started in 1982 for a year-long sabbatical leave, there were three foreign researchers at KEK, and not many more in all of Tsukuba. (In 1982, seeing a foreigner in Tsukuba was a rare event; when we came across each other we either already knew each other or, if not, introduced ourselves.) During this visit, I shared an office with Steve Schnetzer, who, at the time, was a KEK post-doc working on a PS experiment. Steve's PS experiment finished and my attempts to work with one of the emerging TRISTAN experiments was not very successful. We, therefore, decided to pursue some ideas for a TRISTAN experiment that resulted in the Letter of Intent for the AMY experiment. Our ideas must have been pretty good, because the KEK program committee gave us some kind of a tentative approval---with a condition that we find some collaborators. Our LOI had only six names on it, all from the US. When our efforts to find collaborators in Japan failed, we looked elsewhere. Our first success happened in 1983, when Steve Schnetzer, while touring in China, presented himself at the guardhouse of IHEP in Beijing and asked to see the laboratory. After some scrambling, Zheng Zhi- Peng, was given the task of dealing with the crazy foreigner at the front gate. As it turned out, Steve and Zhi-Peng got on famously and, by the time Steve's tour of IHEP was over, Zhi-Peng was enthusiastic about joining AMY. After some correspondence, we happily added IHEP to the collaboration list that was part of the full AMY pro- posal that was submitted in Fall 1983. The next big breakthrough occurred when attempts by a group of Korean physicists to join one of the two approved TRISTAN experiments were not successful. When this happened (by then, I was back in the US), I was encouraged by Satoshi Ozaki to call Joo Sang Kang of Korea University and, as a result of this conversation, I visited Seoul in January 1984 and gave a talk at Korea University (where, in the audience, were such future high energy physics luminaries as Young Kee Kim and Sun Kee Kim). Soon afterwards, the Korea University group joined AMY. The international structure of the AMY group became complete when Amy-chan, the author's next-door neighbor in Aki Maki returned to KEK after a stint at Fermilab. Aki was enthusiastic 1982 was the inspiration about AMY physics and, with enthusiatic encouragement from Kasuke for the name of the AMY Takahashi ("AMY's Godfather"), recruited a highly talented KEK-based experiment. group that became the core element of the team that presented itself to the KEK program committee in March 1984. After lengthy discussions, and in spite of grumbling from some committee members that we were a "bunch of amateurs," KEK Director-General Nishikawa decided to take a chance on us and approved the AMY experiment. We did our best to not disappoint Professor Nishikawa. Although our high hopes for discover- 1 KEK News Vol.6, No.1 The Early Days KEK News ing the top-quark or a new heavy lepton were not to be, we did our best to make a productive physics program from what we had. For some reason---I personally think that it was the healthy mix of different backgrounds and viewpoints---AMY was particularly successful: of the ten most highly cited papers from TRISTAN, seven were produced by AMY. Not bad for a bunch of amateurs! After the end of the TRISTAN pro- The first AMY summer picnic in 1985 was a chance for all the gram, this high degree of international- KEK staff to enjoy good fellowship with visitors from China, ization and excellent productivity was Korea and the US. successfully transferred to Belle. In Belle, like AMY, a majority of the researchers are at foreign institutions. Also, like AMY, this environment of multiple backgrounds and viewpoints has proven to be extremely invigorating. In spite of a much smaller contingent of researchers and, until very recently, considerably less integrated luminosity than our competing experiment, the Belle group has more than held its own and has produced a large number of results, including some discoveries of profound importance. The exciting and vibrant intellectual working environment that we experienced in AMY is the reason many of us continued on in Belle. This despite a number of what I consider to be serious hurdles for foreigners working at KEK and in Japan. These include the poor long-term employ- ment prospects for foreigners in Japan, the abundant red-tape involved in living in Japan and working at KEK, and the exclusion of the foreign researchers from major decision-making at KEK. Today, internationalization is central to virtually all of KEK's programs. In particular, the col- laborations with China and Korea that started with AMY have become deep and lasting relations between the communities that encompass almost all of the laboratory's activities. Moreover, col- laborations with other national communities have proven to be similarly productive and valuable. KEK is truly an exciting cosmopolitan place to work. Interestingly, this all started with collabora- tions that were initiated by foreigners and done externally to KEK: with Steve Schnetzer and Zhi- Peng Zheng's chance encounter at IHEP in 1983 and my call from the US to Joo Sang Kang in Seoul, about six months later. The author of this article, Stephan L. Olsen is a Professor and the Principal Investigator of the University of Hawaii High Energy Physics Laboratory. He has been doing research at KEK for twenty years. He was spokesperson of the AMY experiment and is now a co-spokesperson of Belle. KEK News Vol.6, No.1 2 KEK News Cultural Differences Cultural differences you would encounter in Japan KEK has been at the forefront of high energy physics research for several decades already, but right now is an especially exciting time, both in neutrino physics and in the physics of the beauty quark (beauty factory), and this is attracting many foreign physicists to KEK. However, foreign visitors to Japan should beware of cultural differences, both in the scientific and research environment and in everyday life. Japan was virtually isolated from the rest of the world for most of its history, and the result is that it has a most unique culture. However, at the first glance, life at KEK is not very different from life at any other high energy physics research institute elsewhere in the world. And inside the laboratory, the knowledge of English, but not Japanese, is sufficient. However, there are, when one understands the situation better, very significant differences. The following come to mind: 1. Seniority is more important at KEK, and there is more respect for the hierarchy, 2. At KEK decisions are made preferably by consensus, and 3. Team work plays a more important role. But there is more to the experience of working at KEK than just the research itself; there is also the chance to enjoy the unique culture of Japan, which is an added bonus for those who like to take advantage of such chances, e.g., the unique character of visiting the Japanese temples and shrines with Shinto and Buddhist flavor and unique Japanese touch. Foreign visitors may also take part in traditional Japanese activities like the first shrine visit on New Year's Day, the flower- viewing parties at cherry blos- som time or Japanese fireworks during summer months, just to name a few examples. Outside the laboratory, the most common mistake of west- ern visitors is to assume that things and procedures are more or less the same as in their home country. E.g., the authors have knowledge of a person who mis- erably failed to meet his friends 3 KEK News Vol.6, No.1 Cultural Differences KEK News in a major Tokyo train station because he assumed that train stations in Japanese cities are of mod- erate size (like in his own country) and realized too late that this station is in fact a large city in itself! Another frequent mistake is to assume that everybody speaks English and to underestimate the problems caused by signs and instructions being written only in Japanese. E.g., it happens rather often, when visitors come to Japan for the first time, and the signs are only in Japanese that they choose the inappropriate restroom. Here life is considerably easier if you do know some Japanese. The good news is that it is rather easy to acquire sufficient Japanese for basic survival. For those who like languages in addi- tion to physics, learning Japanese is fascinating. KEK is located in a very unique part of Japan. About 30 years ago, the Japanese government decided to form a new city for science and technology in this area which was then largely unde- veloped, containing mostly rice farms and a golf course. Tsukuba Science City is a hybrid between the rest of Japan and a typical California town. The resulting unique flavor probably makes life more comfortable for foreign visitors, e.g., the streets are broad and have a regular pattern, not narrow and haphazard like in most of the rest of Japan, and the bureaucracy in Tsukuba is more accustomed to dealing with foreigners than is the case elsewhere in Japan.

Load more