What is the biggest gain I have made? ーJournal of participation in international conference

I attended a conference( European Conference for the Sociology of Sports, EASS)  in Madrid, Spain. It was both a fun and a tough experience. But generally enjoyable! Above all, I found the greatest significance of participating in an international conference!

*This NOTE was inspired by Kayo writing "Until I received a HI-CHEW at the international conference - my experience of participating in the local conference" (https://note.com/kayonuli/n/n84cc146a81da). 

Preparation and getting there

This was the second time in seven years that I had participated in an international conference. However, last time I was not a researcher and the conference was held in Asia, which is close to Japan, so I was only half interested in going and giving a presentation. This time, I was serious.

1.first experience with esim

I used to rent a pocket Wi-Fi, but as you feel, I have to worry about the battery of the rental equipment besides my smartphone; I only use my PC in hotels and venues where Wi-Fi is available  (The venue, the university, actually had Wi-Fi in the common areas such as the canteen, but not in the classrooms where the sessions were held. Terrible...). If so, esim on a smartphone is sufficient.

I used a brand called Ubigi. The only reason I chose Ubigi was because I read in a note that someone had used it to go to a conference, and I had plans to go to two countries, so I bought a 'EUROPE 3GB' for 30 days for 7.67euro! So Cheap! I stayed for 7 days and used about 2GB. No problems.

2.the cost problem

Direct flights between Japan and Spain seem to be coming back this autumn, so I have no choice but to take a flight via this time. Furthermore, I also have a domestic flight segment, so the recent rise in ticket prices has been a real headache. I used the miles I had accumulated for domestic flights and also experienced the magic of the day of the week, when airfares are €590 cheaper if you extend your stay by one day, even though I really wanted to return in the shortest possible time. I got the cheapest hotel room (5 nights with breakfast for a total of 360€ ≒ a little over 60,000 yen) out of about 5 hotels mediated by the conference secretariat. I also spent one night in London on the last day for free using hotel points I had accumulated in the past . The conference participation fee was paid for by my postgraduate research fund .

For reference, the cheapest price for economy class is €708. However, there is a transfer time of about 20 hours for both round trips with a changeover in Beijing. When I was a backpacker, I would have definitely gone with this. In the end, I used major Japanese and European airlines via London for both round trips and paid three to four times the lowest price.

3.Preparation for the presentation

I wish I could speak flexibly while looking at the slides.  I can do it in Japanese, but I don't have the language skills to do it in English. I can make a manuscript and read it. However, there is no time or opportunity to have native speakers listen. So I registered my text and had it read out loud by a variety of different speakers with the 'Ondoku-san' (reading aloud) service. Of course, there is a fee, but it is not very expensive. There are some drawbacks, but it is a great way to practice reading.

Day before the conference

Welcome party

I went to participate in  a standing buffet party. This party and the closing dinner were all included in the registration fee, so it's a loss if I didn't attend. When I arrived at the venue at 7pm, nobody was there 😂. 1 or 2 more people started to arrive and it was 40 minutes later when the party somehow got underway. At best, they are generous, at worst they are loose with time, but I was baptized into the "hasta mañana" ("see you tomorrow" in Spanish - what can be done tomorrow doesn't have to be done today) that I experienced many times during my stay. 

Day 1 of the conference

The bus to the university was supposed to arrive at the hotel at 8.10am, but of course it didn't 😂. It left 30 minutes late and arrived a little after 9am. However, the conference itself was running on time, so the opening ceremony had already started.

There were so many presentation sessions that it was hard to decide which ones to watch. I had to look at the abstracts to understand what was going on, but I didn't know where to find them. When I asked the Polish researcher next to me on the bus, he said, "I don't know either. That's Spain" (laughs). I realized on the last day that it was available for batch download…..

We had a lunch in the school cafeteria. Of course, the cost was included. Most conferences in Japan are held on Saturdays and Sundays and the cafeterias are usually closed, so I would like them to do their best . A choice of meat or fish on a rice-based plate. It was a reasonable volume.

In the evening, we were sent by bus to the hotel. When i go abroad, I always try to go to local supermarkets and Humburger"M" to measure prices. A burger, fries and a drink cost just under €12.I realized how cheap the yen was.

Second day of the conference

Some people couldn't get on the bus and had to be sent by taxi. The Polish professor mentioned above said, "Both my country and your country, at first, they  check the number of people staying and prepare a bus, don't they?" He laughed. But I'm used to it now (laughs).

Nothing unusual ... no, that's it. I was surprised at the number of people who gave up even though they had already decided on a presentation. There were about three people in the session I went to alone. All of them were of the same nationality . If you pay the registration fee and get your abstract published, you are as good as participating. If you get a certificate from someone on the last day, it's perfect. But is that enough? It's fun to make a presentation and see the reaction of 'what the hell is he talking about' 😅.

On the bus on the way back, I had a nice chat with a Danish working graduate student. But he talks super fast & gives a lot of information. It's hard to listen in. I gave him my business card and connected with him on SNS, but I really want to improve my English. I got sushi for dinner at a local supermarket. They are a country that normally eats fish. The fish was good. I wish they would do something about the rice. Returned to the hotel and practiced my presentation.  I realized that the presentation time is not 20 minutes but 15 minutes + 5 minutes for Q&A, so I had to cut down some contents! It's a lot of work.

Closing dinner

Why do it on the eve of the last day? Is it because participants who finished their presentations in the first half of the conference are suspected not to come on the last day? The paella was good. Some Chinese researchers came to our table. They said they were shy and couldn't come to the table to talk unless there was alcohol. Both the oral presenter and the poster session presenter were studying at a postgraduate school in the UK. They gave good presentations and I thought, 'Wow! I wonder if I will be able to be like them one day. When dance time started on the floor, I returned to the hotel to practice.

Last day of the conference

There were certainly not many people... I was glad that there were a good number of people at my presentation. The presentation was difficult. First of all, it was the time. It was a question of whether I could fit in 15 minutes if I spoke perfectly and smoothly. As expected, I went over by about three minutes. The question and answer session was cut down to just one question. It was good that there was one question, though. The content itself was surprisingly well received, with a German person saying via the Japanese teacher that it was easy to understand and good, and a person who asked me a question saying that it was logically structured and good. As a sad Japanese who reads from a script, I realised that it is better to speak slowly after reducing the time to about 10 minutes. On the other hand, in 10 minutes and 10 slides, you can only really talk about one point. It is difficult. I would like to be able to speak flexibly while looking at the slides without a script, just like when I give a presentation in Japanese. I still need to improve my English language skills.

After-party

The three Japanese participants went out to a Spanish restaurant after the conference was over. Since the conference had a fixed theme, it was natural that there were many presentations that were in line with the theme (i.e. those that were considered timely), but two professors commented that the large number of intervention studies was remarkable. It is a method that is done in medicine and psychology, but I don't hear about it that much in my genre . It is a method that is one step more advanced than participatory observation and requires more time and hard work, but are more and more researchers thinking that they can no longer contribute to solving social problems unless they go that far? I think this is the greatest significance of participating in international conferences. It is to feel the research trends in other countries, which you can't get to know in Japan.

Of course, I also benefited from the fact that I renewed my determination to improve my English. I wanted to hand out business cards all over the place, but was it surprising that no one had a name card? Is it normal? Are they digital business cards, or do they not even need such a thing in the first place? Anyway, I would like to be able to invite people to lunch and keep chatting with them.

Let's hope I make progress next year. If all goes well, I'll be at the critical stage of my thesis, but I'd like to have enough time to say, "Let's go to a conference to take a break from writing my thesis. Never say "hasta mañana".