When I was writing these texts, I, as a foreign resident in Japan, could foresee that my career as a chemist was going to an end. That didn’t mean I had lost the interest in chemistry; on the contrary, I was still doing some exciting projects about new chemoinformatics methods and novel OLED emitter materials. Alas, the opening xenophobic atomsphere in Japan and the corresponding discrimination against foreigners uneased an alien’s nerve and realistically blocked my way to land a research position. I thought it was time to write down some last considerings as a chemist.
I started working on this project when I was an undergraduate of Cardiff University during the summer break of 2021. At that time, the original code of old mol2chemfig was still online. Now we all know it’s gone. Professor Michael Palmer, one of the authors of the original code, was forced to leave the University of Waterloo because of his anti-vaccination and his university pages including the code were removed. I do not have sufficient knowledge of biochemisty to judge his claims about COVID vaccine, but after reading his infamous Hiroshima Revisited, I suppose it won’t be a good idea to trust any of his words outside pure chemistry realms. However, the whole episode was not purely an argument about the effectiveness, benefits, and potential damages of that new type mRNA vaccine. As the vaccination was madatory in the University of Waterloo, which was not the case in my university, it looked more like a punishment to whom dared to challenge, and encourage others to challenge, the authority.
Who can escape from this kind of punishment, especially for the minority? We the foreigners are blamed for the societal problems in Japan ranging from rice shortage and inflation to crimes and safety issues. What punishments are waiting for us if we dare openly argue that this is a scapegoating? I can imagine as I grew up in a cruel dictatorship country. But I am not willing to imagine it.
Time passes. And a nonscientific job would finally wipe the capability of logical and critical thinking and bring in an apathy life. When that happened, would I be cold enough to ruin others’ lives and not to show even hypocritical empathy?
Nianze Tao
22nd December, 2025 in Tokyo