The Haruki Murakami Research Center held the "2021 Haruki Murakami 10th International Academic Symposium" on June 5th and 6th. Due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, the country was upgraded to the third level of pandemic alert measures. A two-day seminar was changed to be held online, with more than 209 people participating from 9 countries including Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, China, Thailand, Malaysia, Austria, the United States, and Germany. This seminar was hosted by Dr. Chiu-Kuei Tseng, the Director of the Haruki Murakami Research Center, and invitations were sent to important guests like Dr. Wan-Bau Wu, the Dean of the College of Foreign Languages & Literatures, Ikuyo Murashima, Minister of Publicity and Culture Taipei Office - Japan-Taiwan Exchange Association, and Far East University (Korea) Professor檢校裕朗. Dr. Wan-Bau Wu said in a speech that due to the impact of the pandemic, this year’s seminar was originally scheduled to be held in Tokyo. Although I may not meet one in Tokyo, we still gathered online to share Haruki Murakami’s research results. Thank everyone for participating and I want to bless everyone for starting a new life under the pandemic.

Haruki Murakami International Symposium has been held for 10 consecutive years. This seminar received a letter from the well-known Japanese writer Haruki Murakami himself, and the content of the letter was read by Dr. Chiu-Kuei Tseng. Dr. Chiu-Kuei Tseng explained that the letter is mainly to encourage the attendees, maintain a healthy and confident life during the ongoing pandemic situation, and make good use of what one is good at. She shared that the Haruki Murakami Research Center of our university invited the world-renowned Haruki Murakami related researchers to share global academic exchanges and insightful research results, and insisted on holding the "Haruki Murakami International Symposium" every year for language, literature, education, and cultural anthropologies, sociology, translation studies, and other perspectives to discuss "Haruki Murakami." In the past 10 years, it has achieved results and has been recognized in Japan and was also supported by scholars and experts who studied Haruki Murakami in the world. Dr. Chiu-Kuei Tseng thanked President Dr. Huan-Chao Keh, Chairman Dr. Chia-I Chang, Chief Audit Executive Dr. Der-Wen Chang, and the Dean of Research and Development Dr. Bo-Cheng Wang for their support. The center will continue its effort hoping that one day Mr. Haruki Murakami may be invited to attend the seminar.

The theme of the seminar is "The Deviation in Murakami Haruki's literature." Invitations were sent to the Hokkaido University Professor Miharu Nakamura and Osaka University Professor Kinsui Satoshi to give a keynote speech. Dr. Miharu Nakamura explained "逸脱するメタファー—村上春樹の／による修辞学” and Dr. Kinsui Satoshi introduced "村上春樹の小説における《人格》と《キャラクター》の逸脱—『騎士団長殺し』を中心に—." The two-day seminars were conducted in the form of online publications and group discussions. Dr. Chiu-Kuei Tseng thanked the staff for their diligence. In addition to conducting a connection test with relative personnel a week ago, she also thanked Jui-Lin Chang, a specially appointed research assistant of the Center for Distance Education Development for his active assistance in supporting the network connections allowing the seminar to be held smoothly.