Travel can trigger ideas that result in published papers. In 2018 I was travelling in the southern Chinese province of Yunnan when I visited a Buddhist temple in the city of Dali. I came across some signs which were displaying photographs from some regional conferences the temple had hosted. These were along the theme of how Buddhism and China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in the Lancang –Mekong region were in harmony with each other. There had been some seven or eight of the conferences, with the temple hosting Buddhist clergy from all of the Mekong countries, as well as further afield. This got me interested in how the Chinese Communist Party, despite being avowedly atheist, tries to extract diplomatic value from the 100 million Buddhists resident in China. I started research this more thoroughly and found that China’s party thinktanks, like the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, had thought quite a lot about how China could use soft power to promote the BRI. I eventually found that China was doing a lot of Buddhist diplomacy, both bilaterally and multilaterally, and eventually I wrote a research article that I published in Contemporary Southeast Asia. It’s the only thing I’ve ever written on the relationship between religion and international politics, but it’s one of my most read and cited articles. As a result, I sometimes get requests to write more on this topic, but as I don’t see myself as a scholar of religion, I politely decline!

Great question. It’s never the same experience twice, and I think it’s best to start with an acceptance that it is often a long process in which setbacks and rejection can often occur along the way. That said, some articles seem to come out more easily than others. I suppose one way to not become discouraged is to enjoy things that happen along the way, such as when insights arise (sometimes in the middle of the night, inconveniently) or by looking at reviewer feedback as an opportunity to learn more about other writers or theories. I also sometimes start by writing descriptive vignettes or little puzzles, paradoxes or contradictions that seem interesting. By the end of the writing and editing, sometimes these are left on the cutting room floor as they are a bit indulgent, superfluous or extravagant, but the benefit is that they got me writing, which is often half the battle.

* The views expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Center for Southeast Asian Studies, Kyoto University.