"Interesting"
If you chase after
To Myanmar research

I have been interested in foreign countries since I was a teenager, and majored in Burmese language at university.
At that time, Southeast Asia was entering a new era. For example, Ferdinand Marcos, who had reigned as president of the Philippines for 20 years, was overthrown by the People Power Revolution, and a democratization movement arose in Myanmar, forcing the Ne Win administration to step down. It was also a time when economic growth in Southeast Asian countries such as Thailand and Malaysia was beginning to attract attention, and I was overwhelmed by the power of Asia's dynamism. In such an international situation, I thought that if I learned an Asian language that is still spoken by few people in Japan, it might be useful in the future, so I chose Burmese.
I didn't have such deep thoughts in high school, but now I truly believe that I made the right choice in choosing Burmese language, because it allowed me to have a deeper connection with the local community through Burmese language and to come into contact with the gentle and warm personalities of the local people.
I decided to go to graduate school when I was in Junior of Graduate School, after my first trip to Myanmar and wanting to know more about it. By coincidence, the book I was reading in my seminar at that time was by Furnivall, a leading authority on Southeast Asian history. Furnivall was an Indian civil servant who built his career in Myanmar (British Burma) during the British colonial period in the early 20th century, and he argued that the cause of Myanmar's difficult path after independence lay in the colonial period. For that reason, I majored in economic history in Graduate School.
For this reason, my field of expertise is the economic history of Myanmar, research on rice exports and social changes in rural areas during the British colonial period.
After three wars, Myanmar was incorporated under British colonial rule as a state of British India. During World War II, it was also under the control of the Japanese military. During the British colonial period, Myanmar became the world's largest rice exporter, and was also rich in mineral resources, making it one of the wealthiest states of British India, and was called "one of the greatest jewels in the crown of the Indian Empire."
However, after independence, the economy continued to stagnate, and in 1987 the United Nations decided that the country should be considered a "least developed country." The main reason for this was the failure of Burmese-style socialism (known in English as Burma at the time). The background to the adoption of Burmese-style socialism was Furnivall's historical awareness, which I mentioned earlier. As the economy developed, the Burmese people were unable to adapt to the market economy, and were left behind in rural areas, accumulated debt, and their farmland was handed over to foreigners. Furnivall was already a well-known debater who influenced colonial policy in the 1930s, and through nationalists, he also had a great influence on policies after independence. I was also influenced by Furnivall's writings and began research, but now I am trying to overcome Furnivall's work by reexamining the categories of colonial administrative documents and statistics. I believe that the origins of the central agricultural policy of Burmese-style socialism lie in the policies of the colonial period and under Japanese rule.
In recent years, there have been movements for democratization and economic reform, known in Japan for the activities of Aung San Suu Kyi, but the military coup that took place in 2021 has once again set back Myanmar's path to democratization and economic growth. The military regime no longer has any legitimacy, and with the entanglement of some conglomerates linked to the military and the intentions of other countries, Myanmar's future cannot be said to be bright. It is now difficult for us research to conduct research in Myanmar. However, what I would like many people to know is the gentle personality of the Myanmar people, as I mentioned earlier. During Graduate School years, I studied abroad at the National Center for Historical research at the University of Yangon for two years, and have since traveled there frequently to interact with local people. During my study abroad, I conducted interviews in rural areas where there was no running water or electricity, and found and deciphered old handwritten documents left in the countryside. It was a rather harsh experience, but interacting with the warm Myanmar people I met there helped me forget the hardships of research. Some of the elderly people also remembered the Japanese military during the war, and I was able to talk to them directly. By the way, since the military coup, the number of Myanmar people coming to Japan has been increasing, and last year's data showed that there were about 80,000 Myanmar people living in Japan. I'm sure there are Myanmar people living peacefully in your neighborhood.