Kazakhstan Poverty Research - Thursday, Sep. 21 (Day Twentytwo)

In the afternoon, we asked Lailya to guide us to the bookshop where you could buy books in English. There were lovely bookshops where full of English books, WELL REALLY English English books. We were trying to buy her several books on Economics and English but we could not find good books on Economics.

Back to Korea
Lailya had a class at night but she did not attend. She lied with smile that she told her professor that she would not attend the class. I knew that she lied to me but I readily believed her lies…
At the airport, there were some happenings due to our overweighed luggage, we got safely on board. Arik and Lailya were waving hands behind the dividing fence and we were too. I felt something very hot liquids near my eyes but I still don’t know the exact chemical composition of it. Oh.. help me God to come back to this country to know more about this land.

Kazakhstan Poverty Research - Wednesday, Sep. 20 (Day Twentyone)

Wednesday 20 September
Dinner at the Lyalya`s House
Lailya, doubtless the heroin of our research trip, has lived with her grandmother for a long time since her father and mother were working in Astana. Her family is a kind of typical educators, since her grandfather was one of the most eminent entomologists in Kz, (and one of examiner for Dr Roman’s doctoral thesis) and her father is nuclear physicist who got the degree from Moscow. Her mother is a university professor who studied in Germany. Her mother prepared so much foods and we really enjoyed the food. The only concern was that her grandmother did not have good health recently and she could not have a dinner with us. Maybe to her, we were like bad merchants who came to take her precious grand daughter away from her. The relationship between the grandmother and Lailya more convinced my feeling and impression. Next year Lailya will leave her grandmother and I am still very worried about her psychological damage after Lailya leaving. I wish her a great health and hope she can come to Japan to meet her granddaughter.

Kazakhstan Poverty Research - Tuesday, Sep. 19 (Day Twenty)

Tuesday 19 September
We went to the stationary shop for shopping. The favourites of mine during the trip are museum, bookshops where you can buy both books, music CDs and local movies and the last but not the least, stationary shop. I have something like shopping addiction for stationary and I still have those remains I have bought in the UK. And I don’t scrap them easily.
The stationary shop in Almaty was fantastic. They have almost everything I wanted to buy. The quality was good too. I bought measures made of wood for gifts for my students and maps and CDs.

Kazakhstan Poverty Research - Monday, Sep. 18 (Day Nineteen)

Monday 18 September
We had two appointments of interviews with two professors of KIMEP. When I sent a mail to International Relations Office of KIMEP, I did not have a big expectation about the responses. But it was simply good. The International Relations Office circulated my mail to the researchers and two professors contacted me. One of them was Russian educated in the states with an interest in educational assessment. He was a fluent English speaker. The second one was a Kz lady who had been involved in UNDP’s micro-credit scheme. She was so willing to do research on that subject and Miyuki was very much pleased to meet her. I thought she would be a good counterpart if we got the fund for further research.

Kazakhstan Poverty Research - Sunday, Sep. 17 (Day Eighteen)

Sunday 17 September

Back to Almaty
On the way to Airport to catch the plane to Almaty, we found a very high tower near the Airport. Bacchan explained that it was established to commemorate the Japanese prisoners who were building the bridge between the Airport and Kyzylorda. We dropped by and took a photo. That was the second traces of Japanese some of whom were forced or others voluntarily to come to this country far away from their home. In the war, they could be good guys and bad guys but they could be all victims of the history. They are all losers to the war. I paid homage to those losers.

Meeting with Taniguchi
At the Airport, our driver Arik and one lady, who is living in the apartment of Prof., Ishida were waiting for us. Arik’s jeep Uaz looked different also. It gave me an impression that I was sitting on the Mercedez.

Strange Pastor from New York
At night we had a dinner with Taniguchi and Lailya. Almost we finished our dinner, there was one Korean guy coming to us and asked a help. He looked in his sixties, and introduced himself a pastor from New York. And he told us that he lost his way duing the walk since it was his first day in Almaty. The taxi driver was with him and he was looking for a help. The only thing he knew was the name of the street where his rented apartment was. Of course he could not communicate with that driver. We asked that driver to go to that street since he told us that he would know if he was near that street. I told him to come back again if he could not find the apartment. And about 20 minutes, he came back again. This time it was a bit strange. When I went out of the restaurant to meet him he was talking with the girl sitting behind the seat. Having a suspicion about him, I asked the situation in English. He told us that he came from New York and lived there more than 30 years and it could be one test to prove the credibility of this story. He could not communicate with me and Miyuki properly. I gave money to Taxi driver and called Arik to take him to his apartment. He refused to go with us. I urged to get on the car and he got on but he strongly insist on getting off the car. He got off in the middle of the road and disappeared. I don’t know what was his purpose to approach me but Arik told me that he was coming out of the Casino near the restaurant just before going into the restaurant where we had a dinner and hanging around near the Casino before.

Kazakhstan Poverty Research - Saturday, Sep. 16 (Day Seventeen)

Saturday 16 September (Day Seventeen)

Train to Kyzylorda at AM 3:30
Train to Kyzylorda was at 3:30 AM and we had to leave Aral Sea Hotel around 2;30 AM. Always it was difficult for me to wake up in the middle of sweet dream and I started reading materials about Aral Tenizi laying down on the bed. The thing
I found from that material was there was a monument on which the letter from V.I. Lenin to praise the provision of fish during the war in the square in front of city hall, which was surely a sign of the good old days of fishing industry. I suddenly wanted to go to that place to take a photo. My camera could well take a photo in the middle of the night and if we only have some time to drop by. When we met at the hotel lobby, I asked Lailya to ask Mr Askarov whether the square was on the way to railway station. Askarov asked why I asked that kind of question. And I told the story about that monument. The responses were a short remark that why I had not told him before and a grumpy old man’s face. Even before Lailya translated his remarks, I instantly understood that it was not that important whether that square was on the way to the railway station or not. My camera was capable of taking photo but he was not willing to go.

Arrival in Kyzylorda at AM 11:40
Different from our journey from Kyzylorda, we soon decided to go for sleeping. I took the upper of the bunker beds and it was not that bad. When I woke up there was already sunshine penetrating through the window. Getting off the platform, we soon found the face of our driver, Bakhchan.

Hotel Bereke
The hotel we stayed in Kyzylorda was the small inn named Bereke. It is very much small but cozy and has a good atmosphere. The only problem we had is you cannot control the water in terms of its temperature and quantity and we always complained about it. But after coming back from Aralsk, especially from that hotel Aral Sea, you cannot complain anymore. You have a shower in your room at least!!

Kazakhstan Poverty Research - Friday, Sep. 15 (Day Sixteen)

Friday 15 September (Day Sixteen)

Visit Association of NGOs in Aralsk
Too many NGOs sometimes can make a trouble for the coordinated development. It is especially so when there is not good governance and too many self-interested NGOs. One of the articles I read about Kz before I left Japan was on the situation of NGOs in Kz. It mentioned NGIs, Non-governmental Individuals bidding for funding from abroad. According to it, the NGO activities are a kind of new business of those people with an easy access to foreigners. I felt it strongly when I met managers of NGO associations and one of managers doing micro-credit scheme in Aralsk. It did not look like micro-credit in development context but a small financing for profit. He had a very bad impression about Japan since the Japanese embassy rejected his proposal for funding, which I think was very much natural since he did not follow the proper process. We could not get the information.

Reunion with Ms. Akmalak
We visited Ms Akmaral again to get the information on NGOs and she promised to give us information once we listed up things we wanted to know.

Alexander Min at the Local History Museum
After the meeting with Ms Akmaral, we decided to have a visit to Local History Museum. History always fascinates me and I never skip off the visit to Museum. Although it was very much small museum, there were a lot of things telling the story of the prosperity and decline of Aralsk. I encountered unexpected figures in that Museum, those Korean Kzs who lived there. Some of them were highly regarded as war heroes and one of them was Alexander Min. I wanted to take a photo and they asked us paying 50 for each photo. I wanted to have newspaper articles and they told me they would make a copy. We made an arrangement and went back to the Museum after spending some time at the local market. And there was a surprise. The manager of the Museum refused to take money in return for those copied materials and he told us that he saw the newspaper article about us. That newspaper article in Kyzylorda showed its influence several hundred kilometers away from it. Instant cerebrity.., you never know what it is until you feel it.

Kazakhstan Poverty Research - Thursday, Sep. 14 (Day Fifteen)

Thursday 14 September (Day Fifteen)

Ms. Akmalal of Aral Tenizi
In the morning we had an interview with Ms Akmaral working for NGO Aral Tenizi and she was an excellent English speaker and communicator. She had been working for several years for Aral Tenizi and looked very much sympathetic to the fishermen. We heard a lot of stories of their fishing industry projects and get the materials about it. We were so lucky to have an interview with her and I think it was Lailya that found the office was open early in the morning.

To Tastubek
After an interview we headed for Tastubek where 16 households are involved in the fishing industry projects. The road itself was not that bad compared to Gana in Malaysia, but it was car where I had to fight against dust coming through every holes of the car. I could not breathe sometimes and think about carrying oxygen mask next time.

Encounter with Aral Sea
First time we thought about this project we just focused on the poverty and some income generation activities such as micro-credit scheme which are our specialty. Preparing for the project we found that the areas near Aral Sea were one of the worst areas in terms of poverty and it had a close relation with the environmental problem of the Aral Sea.

Interviews with Two Fishermen

Kazakhstan Poverty Research - Wednesday, Sep. 13 (Day Fourteen)

Wednesday September 13 (Day Fourteen)

Registration Process

I have a great interest in institutional legacy in the explanation of policies but the material I have tried to analyse was mostly very much abstract one which you can hardly trace the influence and effects of institutions. But in Aralsk, you can see the real institutional legacy of communist regime. The first thing in the morning we did in Arask was to register ourselves as visitors in Aralsk. Mr Askarov warned us several times that we might be arrested without proper registration and we knew already it could happen. The registration process itself was quite complex and you never know whether you could successfully register yourself within a day. From 8*30 AM we were waiting in his car parked in front of immigration police which was heard a local branch of KGB and the process was not going smoothly.
After spending several hours in front of the police station, I asked Mr Askarov to guide us to the city hall, the Mayor`s office. We have been told that Mr Bota had called Mayor to inform him of our visit, I thought it would be much easier to settle the problem with Mayor. We went to Mayor`s office with Mr Askarov with a bit worried face.

Meeting with Mayor of Aralsk and Photocalls by the Local Newspaper

After 20 minutes of waiting in the city hall, we could meet Mayor of Aralsk city. I still don:t know whether it is because of Mr Askarov`s wise introduction or Ms. Bota`s call. Anyway Mr Askarov introduced us as visitors from Japan and had some relationship with JBIC (of course it is true since I was involved in JBIC project, in Malaysia though) and attracted interest of Mayor.
Mayor met us with a long list of requests for the grants from Japan. He clearly knew the difference between the loan and the grant and explained what kind of things they needed. He seemed to have understood that we might have a relationship with JICA as well. Reporters of local newspaper attended that meeting too and took several photos. I wonder whether those photos were on the newspapers or not. But we were visitors from Japan which has a potential to help them out from various difficulties to them.

Meeting with the Chief of the Police Station

After meeting with Mayor, everything was smoothly going. Even we were guided by local civil servant to show us around the hospitals and schools which they wanted to have grants from foreign countries for. We went to immigration police station and met the chief of the station in his office and get the permit to do research.

Visit School

After getting a permit and having a lunch, the first place we were guided to was primary school without playground and heating facilities. School children had to stand the freezing coldness without heating in the winter. The building itself was not that bad but the problem was maintenance.

Visit Hospital

The hospital did not look like hospital. Old building and the sanitation was not good at all. The grave yard just near the hospital made the atmosphere much more eerie. The equipments were mostly of the 1950s and 1960s. The child born in disfigured form just breathe on the bed without anybody. Who should have the responsibility for this? Kazakhstan produces oil.

Meeting with the President of the NGO, Aral Tenizi

Aral Tenizi is the NGO working for the people living near the Aral Sea. They were trying to revive the fishing industry which almost disappeared due to the desertifified Aral Sea. We had interview with the President but we felt that she did not seem to have an interest in our research. She had been already promised for the investment for her factory and I think it surely gave her some confidence. Anyway, from my experience, the industrialists and politicians don`t like researchers with two hands! (You know the story about the US president looking for an economist with one hand, don:t you?)

Hello, Cambala Glossa!

The central figure of this fishing industry project was Cambala Glossa, the newcomers from Norway, which had a strength in the water with high level of salt. Please refer to my forthcoming article for this wonderful story.

Kazakhstan Poverty Research - Tuesday, Sep. 12 (Day Thirteen)

Tuesday September 12 (Day Thirteen)

To Aralsk by Train (8 hours)
Finally it was the day for the departure to Aralsk. The return ticket was for normal seats which means you cannot lie down almost for more than 8 hours and it was sorted out by the Vice-President of the university. God bless him!! The compartment was very much cozy and I thought it would be great if you could travel across the Syberia with this kind of train. We bought the food and other necessaries for the train travel. It was my first time to get on the train like that. So many first times..

Meeting with Mr Askarov
The time when we arrived in Aralsk was almost 12 oclock. And there was an old gentleman waiting for us. Mr Askarov. In fact I still cannot figure out what kind of person he is. He was sometimes grumpy but gentle and kind in other times.. in a word.. just an old man. When we checked in hour hotel, the best in town, of course, where you don:t have any shower facility in the room, he suggested to have a briefing session for our research. He showed us several materials related to NGOs and the places he was trying to show us. We decided to visit just one

Kazakhstan Poverty Research - Monday, Sep. 11 (Day Twelve)

Meeting with Chief of Vice-President

In the morning we went to Alkot Ata Kyzylorda University again. It became our base camp and liason office due to its excellent computer facilities (of course, you have to think about Kyzylorda where you cannot find internet café!) and good foods with cheap price. The meeting with the Chief Vice President was arranged by the Vice-President in International Relations. When we had a meeting with him, he impressed us by pulling off his business card, and surely it demands our respect. In fact he was the first human being with business card we had ever met in Kyzylorda!! We gave him our gifts from Japan, as usual Hakata Dorimon and he gave us university T-shirt and other artifacts.

Interview with Kyzylorda Oblast Gaggett

On the way back to our hotel, we had to drop by museum again to have an interview with the local newspaper, Kyzylorda Oblast Gaggett. Probably it must have been the first time in history that the reporter had an interview with people from Japanese University. And it was the first time for me to have an interview with a reporter whose official language is Kazakh. We were quite honoured but we did not know the influence and power of the newspaper yet. It turned out when we were in Aralsk several days later.

Invited to the Dinner of Pastor Kim

Pastor Kim invited us to his small apartment for a dinner. It was quite old apartment located not very far from our hotel. His daughter recently had a great interest in Japanese because of the manga and Prof. Inaba was a main guest. We used three languages, but we did not any difficulty in understanding their hospitality.

Kazakhstan Poverty Research - Sunday, Sep. 10 (Day Eleven)

Sunday September 10 (Day Eleven)

Visit Church of Pastor Kim in the morning

Pastor Kim Woo Seop was one of our first contacts and we decided to attend the Sunday Service of his church. His church was just five minutes away by car from our hotel. About 100 members gathered to have a Sunday Service.
After the service we could have interviews with several ethnic Koreans. One of them was Kim Bella, 60 year old lady pensioner. She used to teach Korean languages and after that did some business at the market. About several years ago the bad luck came to her with the capitalism. It was Pyramid business scheme that fail her in terms of money. She had to sell her house due to the business and lost all the assets she got. Ironically it was one of other Koreans who invited her to the business and she almost bankrupted. Kim with her single mother daughter and her grand son had to survive on her pension, 10000 Tenge per month. She smiled saying that now a lot of friends and relatives helped her and it was getting better. Her only concern is her daughter who is half alchoholic.
We had an interview with Lee Valentina, 73 years old lady, who used to teach history at the school, Lee Yulia (Yi Yula in Korean name) and others. They were all victims of the history as Mr Kim Jong Hoon said.

Invited to the Feast at the Dacha by Pastor Kim

After the church service, we were invited to the party at the Dacha by Pastor Kim. He already arranged the party for the male members for the church but it was just Boris Choi, the only elder of the church, the owner and his family of the Dacha and us. The chicken Shasylik he served was one of the best I have ever tasted. They used the wood for fire called Sak Sau and said it was the best for Shasylik. It did not make much smokes and its fire lasted long. A lot of stories came out over the wonderful feast. One of the funny stories was the one about the Tatar women. Choi Boris told us a joke about Tatar women. At the end of Second World War, three leaders of the alliance, Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin gathered to consider how to deal with Hitler if he was captured. Roosevelt suggested the death sentence for him. Churchill opposed and suggested life sentence since it was much more appropriate for the war criminal like Hitler. He explained that the long time in the cell could give him a much harder time than the death sentence. Stalin, having thought seriously, finally opened his mouth. `If the purpose is to give him much harder time, why don`t we make him marry Tatar woman and live with her until he die?` The daughter in law who claimed herself as a descendent of Korean was ridiculed by Boris Choi due to her rather outstanding Tatar-like beauty and the evening came to Dacha when we said good bye to it.

Kazakhstan Poverty Research - Saturday, Sep. 9 (Day Ten)

Saturday September 9 (Day Ten)

Visiting the Green House of the Arkyt Ata Kyzylorda Univeristy

We visited Green House of the Arkyt Ata Kyzylorda Univeristy with Salima, the senior teacher of the English Faculty and the Vice-Governor, Rakhim. The Green House was the result of the CIDA, Kyzylorda and Kyrgiz between 2000 and 2003. They grow cucumbers and from time to time disseminate the information and knowledge about the green house they set up to the local farmers. So far 5 green houses were set up by local farmers through this knowledge transfer. The lady in charge of the Green House is thinking about planting the flowers. Now in Almaty all the expensive flowers are imported from France and they thought it would be great to plant and grow flowers here.
I thought about Prof. Ogata, and it would be great for him to give some help for this University for the development of the Green House projects. Anyway, they don`t have any contact in Japan and Kyushu University is trying to expand the contact in Asian region.

Invitation to Bota`s House Lunch

In the afternoon we were invited to Bota`s house located in the newly developed housing area. Her house seemed to be still under construction but looked very nice compared to other houses in Kyzylorda.
It was her father who attracted all our attention. He is in his seventies and very much Kazakhs who wanted to preserve its tradition. He showed a great interest in Japan and knew very much about Japan. He said he read a couple of books about Japan and pointed out it was Japan that invented submarine first time in history, which I have never heard of. As a very much traditional Kazakh, one of his first questions about Japan was how Japanese husbands discipline their wives. We responded that it was wife not the husband that disciplines the other.
Bis Palmak, meaning foods eaten by five fingers, was the best and we ate them with five fingers following his teaching.
He almost ordered to drink up vodka and Miyuki had to drink three shots of it due to his continuous toast to Japan. Me? I cheated since he did not toast much to Korea.

Kazakhstan Poverty Research - Friday, Sep.8 (Day Nine)

Friday September 8 (Day Nine)

Discussion with Bota

Bota, in her 40s, is an excellent social researcher who worked for various projects for the government. We had a long discussion about her previous research and the possible research collaboration. They were very much willing to do the research and seemed to have a capacity too. The only thing we have to sort out is that we have to get the money from somewhere in Japan. Maybe PM Koizumi`s visit just before our visit may be a help, I thought myself.
Bota did three Kyzylorda government`s projects and first and second projects were the very projects we wanted to do. The results of those projects on the economic and social conditions of the people in Kyzylorda region were in the book and we asked them to copy them for us. Of course, it was in Russian and maybe we can ask Lyalya to translate them for us. After the discussion with Bota, we had a lunch at the student canteen. After staying at the Bota`s office for a while to hand in the chocolate to her.

Meeting with the Dean of World Languages Faculty, Mr Timur

After the meeting we briefly dropped in the office of the Vice-President of International Affairs, Rkhim and there we met the Dean of the World Languages Faculty, Mr Timur. He commanded a fluent English but he said the only time he spent his time in English speaking world was three months in Canada. You can do wherever, if you want to, he proved with his English. He has worked with JICA before (He said it was sometime between 1993 and 1995 but it turned out in 1996 – 1997 through the interview with Dr Salima who worked with JICA team.) The interesting story we heard from him was a lot of Japanese had claimed that they were Korean after the war. So he assumed that among Koreans living in Kyzylorda were descendents of Japanese.

Collecting the maps and statistics

Leaving the university we went to the statistics agency to collect the maps and statistics. There we met that Korean Kazakh lady, Kim, again and she gave me a collection of the newspapers for Korean Kazakhs, GoryoIlbo.

Having a Dinner at Danno

After a long day, we need much more palatable foods. We decided to go to the Korean restaurant, Danno whose signboard has a name in Korean letters. But there were no ethnic Koreans and nobody can understand Koreans. All the menus were in Russian and the taste of Bibimbap was completely different from Korean one. They said that Korean foods here are very much pre-19th century. The foods of Danno had both the pre-19th Korean taste and of course the Kazakh flavour.

Kazakhstan Poverty Research - Thursday, Sep.7 (Day Eight)

Thursday September 7 (Day Eight)

Meeting with Bota, Social Scientist

In the morning Vice-President of the university and Ms. Bota, the vice-director of social research institute, came to hotel to register and introduce us to the Kyzylorda oblast government. In Kyzylorda you don`t have anything you can do without the permission of the government and anything you cannot do with the permission of the government. We were heading for the government with some worries about our future in this research trip.

Interview with Vice-Governor in Economy

When we were led to the office of the vice-governor of the Kyzylorda, I realized that this research trip is becoming much more official than that we have expected. “Reception by the Vice-President of the University, and now we are going to meet the Vice-Governor of the Kyzylorda”
In front of the government building Lyalya and I stopped Miyuki trying to pull her camera out of the bag to take a photo of the government building. Probably we were much more nervous than her.
Bota seemed to know many people in the government. She told us that the guy she greeted at the lobby was one of Vice-Governors. I was a bit relived but my head was making noises in processing expected Q&As.
Mr Kuttikozha Idrisov, the Vice-Governor we met was stern-looking Kazakh with moustaches. From the beginning we looked very much reluctant to listen to Bota’s explanation. He interrupted her several times with short questions to confirm the fact. Now there was the question to us. “Why do you want to do research on poverty particularly in Kyzylorda”. Bingo! Of course that was one of the expected Q&As.
I answered that question and he seemed to agree to my answer. He seemed to have called all the chiefs of the relevant managers. Chief in Economy Dept., Social Affairs, and Statistics were called and they were with us. And I could feel that that stern guy decided to allow us to do research in Kyzylorda, which means we have a strong institutional backup in Aralisk too. One of the last comments he made an emphasis on was we were supposed to pay for all the statistics. “Of course,” I said in a very clear voice, in Japanese, of course.
Once we got the permission from that guy, everything was smooth. After having Kooksi for lunch we went to the statistics agency and looked through the list of the statistics and chose some we want to buy. Even the lady, vice-director of the statistics agency, seemed to be very much friendly and we got the information on the map of Kyzylorda. We saw the map made in 1992 of the environment of Kyzylorda area. I thought myself that “Prof. Ishida may not have that map”. We decided to buy 6 copies of the map. She even introduced the bureau in charge of various maps to us and we visited it. They had a very much detailed map of each rayon in Kyzylorda and city map of Kyzylorda city. We ordered the Aralsk map of population density and city maps.
It was the day of great leap forward in our research. We had a substantial number of statistics, maps and most of all, the institutional back-up from the Kyzylorda government. I felt something very good inside of me and felt like becoming a real expert on Kazakhstan.


Interview with Vice-Governor in Social Activities

In Kyzylorda there are four vice-governors in charge of economy, social activities, agriculture, and construction. After the meeting with the vice-governor of economy, we met the vice-governor of social activities. He seemed to be very much into the cultural activities and he explained us about the importance of the preservation of the tradition of Kazakhstan. He particularly emphasised the importance of preservation of Zerau, the oral discourse of Kazakhstan which was originated from legendary Korkyt Ata (Korkutata), the Kazakh version of minnezinger. Korkyt Ata seemed to have a great effect on the culture of the people in Kyzylorda region but we could not find the book about him written in English. He was born in 7th century and before he was born he spent 7 years in his mothers` womb. When he was born, the bad climate which had affected the region became good and there was a camel for him. He travelled around the region with the traditional two-string musical instrument called Tombli to sing a song and his song contained profound philosophy moving people`s mind. The only thing Korkyu Ata, such a philosopher and artist as he was, could not accept was the death. He was escaping from the death, but he could not, and died in one place called ******.

Maps of Kyzylorda City.

After the meeting with the Vice-Governnor in Social Activities, we went to another government office to get the map of Kyzylorda city. They were very kind to us and it seemed that the order of the Vice-Governor in Economy had a great effect in our activities. We selected several maps and they promised to give them to us on Monday.