In this article, Lee Deahan, a professor at Sungkyunkwan University, reflects on his interactions with international colleagues at the Third Asian Evolutionary Conference held in Singapore in December 2023. During this conference, he had brief encounters with various scholars but developed a particular rapport with Professor Naoki Irie from the Integrated Center for Evolutionary Science in Japan. Discovering that the following year marks the centennial of the renowned evolutionary biologist Motoo Kimura's birth, they planned an event to commemorate this occasion at the Japanese Society of Evolutionary Biology's annual meeting.

Lee emphasizes the significance of the newly established Korean Evolutionary Society, comparing it with the more established and diverse research landscape of the Japanese society. He believes a collaborative session between the two societies, which he suggested to Naoki, would be mutually beneficial and could enhance research exchanges. This partnership materialized, culminating in a celebratory delegation from Korea to Japan in August of the following year.

Subsequently, the article recounts Lee's reunion with Professor Ting Chou-Ti from National Taiwan University at a conference at Tokai University after initially meeting in Singapore. Both scholars share a common interest in evolutionary studies, specifically in Drosophila research. After the conference, Lee received an invitation from Chou-Ti to visit Taiwan, where he is scheduled to give seminars and engage with various professors and students at the university and the Taiwan Central Research Institute, further fostering international academic collaboration in evolutionary biology.