Shingo Suzuki: Making What You Love Your Job?

When I was a student, while discussing how to choose a research theme, I once reached the blunt conclusion that "the most important thing is not to choose a theme you aren't very interested in." The idea was that you can't sustain a long life as a researcher if it isn't fun, but while simple, this is difficult.

In the study of history, you can do nothing without historical materials. If you are lucky enough to be interested in administrative documents, the Ottoman administrative documents themselves—said to number over 150 million items—become your material (which does not mean it is easy). On the other hand, if you are unlucky enough to be interested in a niche field, you might find nothing after digging deep. For young researchers, the risk of hitting a dead end after pushing forward must be avoided. On the other hand, there was also talk that one could start research based on the availability of materials and then "come to love the subject" later. It is true that people often say "home is where you make it," and whether it is a place to live or a romantic relationship, you might gradually come to like it by trying to live there (or dating) for the time being. However, at least in my case, I never came to like sericulture, which I chose as my graduation thesis theme simply because the materials were available. Things you are not good at are, after all, things you are not good at.

Since I couldn't come to like silkworms, I tried to find a way forward in Ottoman-language local newspapers after entering graduate school. This was because I was interested in the concerns of the people at that time. What kind of issues frequently became articles, what stirred public opinion, and how were they discussed? Since they appear frequently in articles, the risk of a lack of historical materials can be avoided to some extent. While tirelessly following the pages, I noticed that municipalities were constantly targets of criticism, and in particular, voices demanding the maintenance of urban public health repeatedly appeared. In this way, I made urban hygiene issues my immediate research theme, which eventually led to research clarifying national medical administration in the Ottoman Empire.

Looking back like this, it seems I was the type who prioritized the presence or absence of materials first and then "came to love" them later. However, in reality, the subject of the sericulture I handled in my graduation thesis was pebrine, a disease of silkworms, and it is consistent in terms of being about "disease." In the end, it may just be that public health "caught my eye" as a result of countless unconscious choices. It is probably just a difference of whether you realize what you love sooner or later.