Hiroshi Ishii (Maritime archaeology, Modern conflict archaeology)
The first time I heard the term “Underwater Archaeology” was in the middle of a desert. During a field school in the high desert of Oregon, …

Julie Ann de los Reyes (Geography, Political Ecology)
My home country, the Philippines, is no stranger to storms. Each year, an average of 20 tropical cyclones sweep across the archipelago, a fact so routine that typhoons have become part of the rhythm of life—anticipated, endured, and, with luck, survived. But in September 2009, …

Hiroyuki Yamamoto (Area Studies, Media Studies)
Ever since childhood, I have loved the Ultraman television series that features the Ultra superheroes. I vividly recall a scene
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Caroline S. Hau (Cultural Studies)
In my childhood during the 1970s, two-wheeled, horse-drawn carriages called kalesas were ubiquitous in Manila’s Chinatown. They brought denizens to and from school, the movie house, restaurant, clinic, store, church, and temple. Their cousin, the spacious karitela, transported goods in bulk from the markets of …

Tomohiro Machikita (Labor Economics and Industrial Development)
Increasing numbers of stores are installing self-checkouts recently. The customer places the basket with the goods on one side of the self-checkout and hangs a shopping bag on the hooks on the other side. The barcode …

Nathan Badenoch (Linguistics)
Living in Japan, your surroundings talk to you—along the Kamo River, in the local Lawson, walking up to Yoshida Shrine, or on the 205 bus—through onomatope, or onomatopoeia. …

Minami Tosa (Librarian at CSEAS)
In our daily lives, it is now commonplace to use translation tools and generative AI to understand foreign languages, and it goes without saying that we enjoy the convenience of such tools in various situations. However, …

Wataru Yamazaki (Food hygiene, zoonotic disease, animal infectious disease)
My first encounter with pathogens was in January 1993, when I was just 20 years old and aboard a night bus from Nepal to India. I still vividly remember …

Genta Kuno (Area Studies, Urban Studies)
It was dry season in Jakarta. I found myself heading to one of the city’s most infamous prisons with two friends. When our turn came, a warden handed us lanyards and stamped our hands with a UV mark. …