Meat and interpreting

We are content with what we see, with the cramped vista on the professional world. After all, what is the use of trying and know better the dynamics of the market you are swimming into? Some days you swim fast, some days you float, some days like these days, you get drown, or at least the feeling is that of a sinking ship. An epistolary conversation with A. back in France has been yet another proof of the fact that we don't know the dynamics and the differences of the markets we are trying and make a living. And we don't care, although I do. My estimate on the nationality of interpreters of Japanese-Any-other-language is 98% Japanese. It is part gut feeling, part facts. For any-other-language = French, I stick to my estimate. I have no proof that suggests a different balance. Same for English. Of course, "interpreters" in liaison interpreting come in all variety, in all competences. It has always been so. What is different is the degree of exposure. On Viadeo, a clone of LinkedIn, one young French lad exposes himself as an interpreter. He even provides in his profile page a link to a video showing himself in action. I am glad there was no Video and the Internet when I started. The professionalization of amateurishness is a worldwide core trend. The nice thing with people born in the 80s is that they are geared in such a way that anything that happened previously belongs to prehistory at best. It's good for business. The Four of Liverpool still have a future, that of being rediscovered as a new band every other generation. It's not good for business, but his competences do match the requisite of his clients. They don't ask for more. There are many clients that do not ask for more and sustain the trend that this level of competence is just enough - so why pay more for pretentious interpreters that pretend they know better and can give better service?

A. doesn't know much interpreters of Japanese in France that are not Japanese. Actually, nationality aside, he doesn't know more than 5 interpreters of Japanese. It doesn't matter to know the professional environment you are swimming in, that is, the big picture of it. The neighborhood will be enough. If you are alone, you may create a micro monopoly all for yourself. That happens when leaving in provincial areas. Knowledge of the macro structure doesn't bring home work. At least, that is the standard thinking. C. who is Japanese and living in France displayed yet another standard reflex when I started my worn out discourse on the need for same profession professionals to interact as colleagues, highlighting how much interpreters have been shunning at each others. She slapped back the invariable deeply ingrained argument : "but you are competitors!". I am eternally pissed off by that matter-of-fact characteristic that justifies the shunning out of potential professional relationship. I intend to be eternally pissed off and avoid to start thinking she might be right. How genuine she was when she told that though. They are always genuine. The weird thing is to believe that interaction is still possible within a competitive environment. My argument these days is that butchers have federations, associations of butchers. They talk there about meat, the business. Probably they don't share their secret recipe of dried sausage with pistachio. But they talk. And yet, there may be more than one meat shop in the same street. They may despise each other, but the federation is a common ground for professional dialogic civility where they can at least talk, and maybe more. This argument invariably doesn't stir even a tiny wave on the surface. After all, what is the relationship between interpreting and meat?