我们为什么要到中国来？

文/Kaoru Kakinuma（日本） 译/张佳艺

作为一名研究人员，2019年，我从日本来到中国，加入了上海大学社会学院于2015年成立的亚洲人口研究中心，这里有悦纳多样性的氛围。由于人口统计学与社会经济和环境研究密切相关，中心的研究人员均拥有不同的研究背景。我们来自世界各地，如巴西、加拿大、英国、韩国、尼泊尔、日本和中国，这就意味着我们必然持有不同的观点和见解。尽管常常众说纷纭，但众口一致的是，我们都很尊重他人的意见和想法，尽可能去理解对方。我很喜欢这种环境，给人以舒适感和安全感。此外，其他院系教师在研究领域颇有建树，常常会给我的研究带来新视角与新动力。在中国成功吸引海外研究人员来华方面，亚洲人口研究中心是一个极具代表性的例子。

近年来，日本的一些研究人员加入了中国的研究所或高校，我是见证者之一。当我在上海与日本研究人员参加年会时，逾2/3的参与者都提到他们是在2015年后来到上海的。他们处于不同的职业生涯阶段。有些研究人员是从日本的大学退休后来到上海的，有些则比较年轻，大概三四十岁，甚至更年轻，才刚刚获得博士学位。有些日本的年轻研究人员正考虑申请在中国大学工作的机会，还会向我了解“上海的生活怎么样”。据我在上海的观察，也许在以前，资深研究人员是主要移居对象，但最近反倒是更多的年轻研究人员选择在中国大学工作。

中国为研究人员提供良好机遇

为什么国际研究人员要到中国来呢？有些日本人认为，中国的大学为研究人员提供丰厚待遇，所以日本的研究人员争相移居中国。我认为这只是个别现象。我了解的从中国大学获得高薪的研究人员并不多，周围的大多数人和我自己都不是这样的。对于日本的大多数研究人员来说，我认为金钱并不是他们到中国来的主要动机。

Kaoru Kakinuma（日本籍）系上海大学亚洲人口研究中心人口与环境、气候变化研究工作的副教授，其主要研究兴趣为“不断变化的环境中人类与环境间的相互作用”。她的研究涉及评估气候变化对社会生态系统的影响，目前她正在研究气候对移民、社会不平等和儿童营养不良的极端影响。曾任日本东北大学助理教授、日本科学促进会研究员和哥伦比亚大学访问学者，于东京大学农业和生命科学研究生院获得博士学位。

离开祖国是一个重大的决定，一旦离开，我们便不能常与亲友团聚，尤其在新冠肺炎疫情形势下，国际旅行更加困难。我已经一年多没有见到家人了，我周围的其他国家的大多数人也是这样。可即便如此，我们依然选择留在中国，为什么？我想这是因为我们是研究人员，我们发自内心想做研究，而这里正是适合做研究的地方。反观日本，日本的儿童数量正在减少，日本大学的工作机会也随之减少。即使你被指派为研究人员或教员，也会被要求去做更多的行政事务，这会减少你专心研究的时间。中国的大学和研究所为我们提供时间、创造机会，让我们更好地追求研究目标。这是到中国来的最主要动机，至少对我来说是这样的。

中国是如何为我们做研究提供良好机遇的呢？首先，中国接纳已取得重大研究成果的资深或年轻研究人员。进而有强大内驱力去开展研究的年轻研究人员也被这里的研究环境吸引而来。当我加入上海大学亚洲人口研究中心时，那里有人口统计学和相关跨学科研究领域的先驱。他们在研究上很有建树，我很激动能够加入这里与他们共事。无论是知晓他们的研究课题，或是与他们一起研讨，我都感到很开心。我对环境导致的人口迁移兴趣尤为浓厚。亚洲人口研究中心的研究人员从不同角度对迁移进行研究，每位教师及其学生的研究都给了我很多新视角，对我的研究项目都有一定启发。

因此，我认为如果大学提供良好的研究环境，那么吸引优质的研究人员跨国来华就会成为开展研究的关键。一旦国外的研究人员来到中国，势必会对其本国研究人员有一定带动作用——如果在华的海外研究人员分享在华经历，那么这些先驱可能会带动一些他们本国的研究人员到中国来。此外，我身边的中国研究人员也总是努力发表有价值的论文。在这里每位研究人员开展研究的强大内驱力激发了活跃且有吸引力的研究环境。

我还觉得这里的人都在追求前沿与跨学科研究。我对“不断变化的气候中的社会生态动力学”感兴趣，希望通过跨学科的研究项目发展新的环境科学，将人类活动和环境动力学结合起来。我和合作者正在研究将从本地到全球范围内的时空人口动态与环境动态（如气候、水和植被）相结合。人口统计学和环境科学之间的合作，将成为在不断变化的气候中实现可持续发展的重大突破。当前，鲜有研究机构开展我们进行的这项研究。我想致力于使上海大学亚洲人口研究中心成为世界上可持续发展科学领域最重要的跨学科研究机构之一，我也想为年青一代提供学习跨学科研究方法的机会，以实现气候变化时代的可持续社会。

目前，中国正在关注气候变化问题和可持续发展目标，这也对我的研究有所推动。由于我的研究领域与这些可持续发展问题密切相关，我经常看到中国许多有价值的论文，或讨论气候变化的影响与适应，或评估中国可持续发展目标的进展。我正在努力尝试加入一个研究网络，很荣幸能与中国的这些研究人员合作。

我和合作者正在进行跨学科研究，以求实现几个联合国可持续发展目标，尤其是消除贫困、消除饥饿、性别平等、清洁饮水、社会平等。例如，我们发表了一篇关于世界上由洪水引起的人口迁移的论文。目前我正考虑将该研究框架应用于评估中国的洪灾影响。我们也在研究世界上水安全所暴露出的性别不平等问题。这一课题对非洲国家来说特别重要。非洲和南亚的另一个重要研究课题是严重干旱下的儿童营养不良和可持续粮食生产。在这个项目中，我们试图制定一个新方案来同步实现粮食的可持续生产与儿童营养不良的缓解。另外，我从读研开始，就一直研究蒙古草原，目前正在研究极端气候对蒙古牧民之间经济不平等的影响。我指导的一名研究生主要研究日本的中暑死亡率，关注气候变化对老龄化社会的影响。这也是一个很有趣的研究课题。如果研究人员对这些课题感兴趣，关注不断变化的气候中自然与人类之间的关系，我会很愿意与他们交流。

在中国生活有一种归属感

中国的大学对我们的日常生活给予足够多的关怀，这一点也很重要。上海大学校园里有教职工公寓。以可接受的价格住进校园，这对我这种初来乍到来华做研究的人员来说简直是雪中送炭。在上海如果自己去租房子，那么需要去和房东协商，有时房东还会要求你在短时间内搬走。我觉得我难以独自处理这些问题。在这里，我还喜欢步行通勤，无须挤地铁上下班。校园绿化很好，我可以在早上去办公室的路上看看挺拔的大树、听听鸟儿的歌唱。学校食堂提供三餐，春节期间也正常开放，还在除夕为我们提供年夜饭。因为大多数海外研究人员和教师不能回国，所以这样的关怀在新冠肺炎疫情防控期间显得尤为重要。我在中国举目无亲，却可以在校园里感受到贺新春的气息。

上海大学的国际办公室为国际教员安排了一些庆祝活动，我们春节时会写书法、包饺子，中秋节也会有一些庆祝活动。我很感激国际办公室费心举办这些活动，让我们这些游子可以将他乡安心视作家乡。通过这些活动，我可以与上海大学的其他海外研究人员交流，一起分享在上海的点滴生活。有时我们也谈论合作研究的可能性，如果我能与上海大学不同院系的研究人员合作，那就太好了。除了庆祝活动以外，国际办公室还为外籍教师组织了一次税务研讨会，提高了我对税务的理解。我还参加了由国际办公室组织的申请国家自然科学基金研究经费的研讨会。会上，我学到了在这里申请研究经费的基本知识。这些活动对我在上海生活大有裨益。

不得不说，我真的很喜欢上海的氛围。上海是一个尊重和接受多元文化的城市。不同文化随处可见，有法租界周边的充满历史气息的美丽建筑，有浦东地区全新的现代建筑。上海像是镶着马赛克结构，同一条街上，既有国际餐厅，也有本地面馆。不同的外观，不同的食物，不同的价格，它们却构成了当地人不可或缺的生活。

这里的人们也非常友好，即使我的汉语说得不太流利也没关系。上海有海纳百种文化的氛围。我非常喜欢去上海的咖啡店，这里有很多小咖啡店。有时我听不懂当地人跟我说的话，而他们大多数人其实都理解我听不懂汉语，所以他们要么汉语说得很慢，要么干脆换成英语。这让我突然想到另一段经历。当我参观一个博物馆时，对着指示都是汉语的售取票机，我不知道该如何操作。我身旁的人注意到我买票遇到了问题，于是他们帮我买了一张。虽然这不过是几分钟的事，但我至今仍记忆清晰。这里的人很理解有些人无法说一口地道的当地语言，也理解他们不熟悉当地的生活习惯。他们接受我是这里的一员，友善的态度让我顿生归属感。

我认为上海本地人对多元文化有很大的包容性的一个重要原因是他们有很多机会与外国人交流。一位学生告诉我，上海的孩子有机会和其他国家的孩子一起玩。虽然他们使用不同的语言，但可以一起玩，如一起玩各自国家的玩具。多元文化无时无刻不存在于当地人的日常生活中，所以他们欣然接受。这解释了为什么上海一城有千面。而这种包容性对于开展研究也很重要。新式研究有时来自不同研究领域之间的交流碰撞。于这些领域的研究人员而言，相互尊重非常重要。我们在上海的日常生活中便可以感受到多样性，这也将有利于各研究领域间的顺畅交流。

长期愿景对评估人才至关重要

中国成功吸引了世界各地的研究人员，来自中国的论文出版量也有所增加。我相信，拥有多样化的研究和教育背景的研究人员将产出新式研究成果。那么，中国大学下一步该做什么？不断吸引海外研究人员是至关重要的，以免人才如烟花一样转瞬即逝。我觉得大学要有长期愿景。有时，大学在评估教师表现时过于关注短期内发表论文的数量。当然，论文发表数量确实很重要，但不该忘记的是，它只是评估绩效的指标之一，不适用于所有方面。

开展新研究需要花费大量时间，因为没有人做过这些工作，进而意味着没有特定的研究方法。我们需要自己寻找方法。研究人员应该继续学习新知识，找到创造性的方法。如果你想尝试做一些新的事情，人们往往是不能接受你的新想法的。你需要花时间来阐释新研究的重要性。下面我将举一个极端的例子，发生在一个获得诺贝尔奖的研究人员身上。Elinor Ostrom教授申请了经济学博士学位，但论文被拒，而后她获得了政治学博士学位。几十年后，她于2009年获得了诺贝尔经济学奖。这个故事足以证明新生事物对于人们来说往往有距离感，不为众人所理解。寻找新知识、新方法，稿件被拒、待修改的过程都属于开展研究。如果我们套用以前研究所用过的同样的方法或框架，可以快速发表多篇论文，但却不能让研究延伸到下一阶段。如果我们坚持挑战，向着下一阶段进击，这虽然会耗费大量时间，但我相信毫无疑问最终会取得巨大成就。所以，长期愿景对于评估研究人员的表现至关重要。

最后，我想描述一下我计划通过研究项目达成的目标。正如我所提到的，我想发展新的环境科学，关注不断变化的气候中人与自然的可持续关系，借此致力于使上海大学亚洲人口研究中心成为引领世界的跨学科可持续发展科学的研究机构。在为研究项目努力的同时，我也希望为上海大学的学生提供良好的教育。我希望与学生分享可持续发展和气候变化方面的最新重大研究成果，并帮助他们成为能够解决全球可持续发展问题的人。

为了让人才持续流入中国，也为了在中国开展不同凡响的研究，长期愿景举足轻重。在撰写本文时，我再次想起并感念身边人对我的大力支持与帮助，让我的研究顺利开展。感激之情，无以言表。

As a researcher, I came to China from Japan and joined the Asian Demographic Research Institute (ADRI), School of Sociology at Shanghai University in 2019. The institute was founded in 2015. I feel that ADRI has an atmosphere of welcoming diversity. Since the demography closely relates to socio-economic and environmental studies, we have researchers with various backgrounds. Moreover, we are from different places such as Brazil, Canada, England, Korea, Nepal, Japan,and China. It means we may have different perspectives and opinions, but I feel people at ADRI respect others’ views and thoughts and try to understand each other. I appreciate this environment. It makes me feel comfortable and safe to be here. In addition, our faculties have outstanding achievements in research areas. They always give me new insight and motivation to do my research. Therefore, ADRI may be an excellent example to show that China successfully attracts foreign researchers.

I am also a witness to some researchers in Japan who joined Chinese research institutes or universities recently. When I had a year-end party with Japanese researchers in Shanghai,more than two-thirds of the participants mentioned that they came to Shanghai after 2015. They are at different stages of their careers. Some researchers came to Shanghai after retirement from Japanese universities, and some researchers are younger, in their 30s-40s or even younger, just getting their Ph.D.s. Moreover, young researchers in Japan sometimes ask me, “how is life in Shanghai” since they are thinking of applying for job opportunities in Chinese universities. My observation on Shanghai is that previously only senior researchers were the majority of researchers migrated, but more recently, more younger researchers are working in Chinese universities.

China Offers Good Opportunities for Researchers

Why are international researchers coming to China? Some people in Japan mentioned that Chinese universities offered higher salaries to researchers, so researchers in Japan moved to China. I think this story only explains a particular case.I also heard that some researchers got offers with excellentsalaries from Chinese universities, but most researchers around me did not. I think money is not the greatest motivation to come to China for most researchers who are from Japan.

It is a big decision to move out of our home countries. We can’t see family and friends there so often, especially during COVID-19 it is more challenging to make international trips. I haven’t seen my family for more than one year now. And most people from other countries around me are in a similar situation. But still, we are in China. Why? I think it is because we are researchers. We want to do our research, and here is the place for doing our research. Unfortunately, the number of children in Japan is decreasing, and job opportunities in Japanese universities are also reducing. Even if you assign as a researcher or faculty,you are asked to do more administrative issues, reducing your time to do research. Chinese universities and research institutes provide us time and opportunities to pursue our research objectives, which is the greatest motivation to come to China, at least for me.

How does China provide us with great opportunities to do research? I think China first accepted senior or young researchers with outstanding research achievements. Then younger researchers who had great motivations to develop research areas are attracted to these research environments. For example,when I joined ADIR, researchers pioneered demography and related interdisciplinary research areas. In addition, they have significant research achievements, so I was excited to join ADRI and work with them. I am always glad to hear and discuss theirresearch topics with them. In particular, I am interested in environment-induced population migration. ADRI has researchers who conduct migration research from different perspectives.Every faculty’s and student’s research gave me a lot of new insights that affected my research projects.

Thus, I think if universities provide suitable research environments, perhaps the kind of researchers there are is one of the most important things, making researchers try to cross borders and come to China. Once a researcher from abroad makes their way to China, it can affect researchers in their home country.If these researchers in China shared good experiences with other researchers in their home country, some researchers may follow these pioneers and come to China. In addition, Chinese researchers around me always try to publish influential papers.Each researcher’s great motivation to do research may create active and attractive research environments here.

I also feel that people here are pursuing frontier and interdisciplinary research. I am interested in “Social-Ecological dynamics in a changing climate.” Through multidisciplinary research projects, I want to develop new environmental sciences that integrate human activity and ecological dynamics. The coauthors and I are working on integrating spatiotemporal demographic dynamics with ecological dynamics, such as climate,water, and vegetation, from local to global scales. This collaboration between Demography and Environmental Science will be a significant breakthrough for sustainable development in a changing climate. There are few research institutes to integrate demographic spatial-temporal dynamics with environmental factors from local to global scales. I want to make ADRI one of the world’s most important interdisciplinary research institutes in sustainability science. Then, I want to provide opportunities for young generations to learn multidisciplinary research approaches to achieve a sustainable society in the era of climate change.

China now focuses on climate change issues and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which also affects my research.Since my research area is tightly related to these sustainability issues, I often saw many significant papers from China discussing climate change impacts or adaptations or assessments of the progress of SDGs in China. Therefore, I am trying to join a research network, and I will be happy if I can collaborate with these researchers in China.

My collaborators and I are conducting interdisciplinary research to achieve several Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs),especially no poverty, zero hunger, gender equality, clean water,and reduced inequalities. For example, we published a paper on flood-induced population displacement worldwide. Now, I am considering applying the research framework to assessing flood impacts in China. We also are conducting gender inequality issues in water security in the world. This topic is vital for coun-tries in Africa. Another important research topic for Africa and South Asia is child malnutrition and sustainable food production in severe droughts. In this project, we are trying to develop a scenario to achieve sustainable food production and reduce child malnutrition. I also want to mention that I have continued research in the Mongolian grasslands since I was a master’s student. Currently, I work to examine the effect of climate extremes on economic inequalities among herders in Mongolia. In addition, I supervise a master’s student who focuses on heat stroke mortality in Japan. Research into this field also helps understand other topics, such as how climate change affects the aging society. If researchers are interested in these research topics that focus on sustainable nature-human relationships in a changing climate, I would be more than happy to talk with them.

Living in China Has a Sense of Belonging

It is also essential that Chinese universities care about our daily life. For example, Shanghai University has residential buildings for faculties on the campus. I can live on the campus at a reasonable price, which means a lot for researchers who can live here when they first come to China. If you rent an apartment by yourself in Shanghai, you need to negotiate with an owner, and sometimes an owner asks you to move to another apartment on short notice. I don’t think I can handle these issues by myself. I also like that I can go to my office on foot. I don’t need to use a crowded metro for the commute. Our campus has a lot of trees,and I can enjoy them and birds singing on the way to my office in the morning. Canteens on the campus provide every meal,breakfast, lunch, and dinner. They even opened during the spring festival and offered us a special meal for the lunar new year’s eve. Dinner here was deeply meaningful as it took place during the COVID-19 outbreak. It was nice to feel at home,especially since most international researchers and faculties could not return to their home countries. I don’t have family here, but I could feel the celebration of the spring festival in the campus.

The international office at Shanghai University gave us several activities for international faculties. For example, we celebrated the spring festival by doing calligraphy and making dumplings.We also had celebrations for the mid-autumn festival. I appreciate that the international office held these activities. They tried to include us in celebrations like a family. I could communicate with other researchers abroad at Shanghai University through these events. We could share our daily life in Shanghai, and sometimes, we talked about the possibilities of our research collaborations. That would be great if I could collaborate with researchers across different departments at Shanghai University. In addition to the celebrations, the international office organized a tax seminar for foreign faculties that was very helpful in improving my understanding of tax. I also joined the workshop to apply for the National Natural Science Foundation of China’s(NSFC) research funding organized by the international office.Through the seminar, I was able to get the basic knowledge to apply for research funding here. These activities are constructive and supportive of my life in Shanghai.

I also want to mention that I like the atmosphere of Shanghai.Shanghai is a city that respects and accepts diverse cultures. We can see many cultures in Shanghai. There are beautiful historical buildings around the French Concession and new modern facilities around the Pudong area. I think Shanghai has a mosaic structure. Here we can see international restaurants and local noodle restaurants on the same street. They have different appearances and provide other foods at different prices. But both of them are important for people living there.

People here are friendly to me even though I cannot speak Chinese well. And it has atmospheres for welcoming different cultures. For example, I like to visit coffee shops in Shanghai.By the way, there are a lot of small coffee shops here. Sometimes I cannot understand what people there spoke to me, but most of them know that I cannot understand Chinese well, and they speak Chinese slowly or switch to English. Here is another story, when I visited a museum, I didn’t know how to buy a ticket via the machines since the machine was in Chinese. People around me noticed that I was struggling to access it and helped me get one. It only took a few minutes, but I remember it well.People here understand that some people can’t speak a common language and that adapting to the local customs is challenging.Their attitudes made me feel that it was okay to be here, and they accepted me as a member of society.

One of the big reasons that local people in Shanghai have enormous capacities for diverse cultures is that they have several opportunities to communicate with foreigners. One of the students told me that children in Shanghai have opportunities to play with children from other countries. Although they use different languages, they can play together, and sometimes they use various toys from China or someone’s home country. Since local people could feel different cultures in their daily life, they would accept diversity, and that is why Shanghai is a city that has several aspects. I think this atmosphere is also essential for conducting research. Novel research sometimes comes from communications among different research areas. Researchers from different research areas need to respect each other.Therefore, we can feel diversity in our daily life in Shanghai,which would benefit smooth communications across research areas.

The Long-Term Vision is Critical for Evaluating Talent

As I mentioned, China successfully attracted researchers from all over the world. Many researchers relocated to China within 5-6 years. The number of publications from China has increased in the same period. I believe researchers with diverse researchand education backgrounds will develop novel research achievements. What is the next step for Chinese universities? It is essential to keep attracting researchers from abroad in order not to stop the flow in an instant like fireworks. I think it may be significant that universities have a long-term vision. Sometimes universities focus on the number of published papers to evaluate faculties’ performances during the short term. Of course, the number of publications is significant. Still, we should not forget that it is just one of the indicators for evaluating performances and cannot assess all aspects of them.

Conducting novel research takes a lot of time. Since there are no specific ways to do that, we need to find ways ourselves. Researchers should continue to learn new knowledge to find creative ways. And if you are trying to do something new, people often cannot accept your new idea. It would help if you took the time to inform the importance of your novel research. For example, her dissertation was rejected when Nobel Prize researcher professor Elinor Ostrom applied for her Ph.D. in economics.Instead, she received a Ph.D. in Political Science. After several decades, she got the Nobel Prize in economic sciences in 2009.This story shows that doing something new can be difficult for people to understand. Thus, all processes, such as finding new knowledge and methodologies or getting rejections and revising our manuscripts, are included in “conducting research.” If we use the same methods or frameworks that previous research used, we can quickly publish multiple papers, but we cannot take our research to a new stage. If we keep challenging to move on to a new location, it takes a lot of time, but I believe we will be able to achieve outstanding achievements. So I would like to mention that a long-term perspective is essential to evaluate researchers’ performances.

Finally, I would like to describe what I want to achieve here through my research projects. As I mentioned, I want to develop new Environmental Sciences focusing on sustainable human-nature relationships in a changing climate. Through the process, I would like to contribute to making ADRI a research institute to lead interdisciplinary Sustainability Science worldwide. While I will work hard on research projects, I would also like to contribute to providing a good education for Shanghai University students. I want to share the latest significant research outcomes in sustainability and climate change with students. I want to help them to be people who can resolve global sustainability issues.

A long-term perspective may be essential to continue the flow and develop incredible research in China. Through writing this article, I feel that the people around me have greatly supported and helped me. Without their support and benefits, I could not conduct my research here. I appreciate that from the bottom of my heart.