Musing about the other side

There is a characteristic pattern. It reads more or less somewhat like : "Please be advised that we don't have the capacity do deal with you in English."

If you leave aside the competent chunk of Japanese at English, the majority under the spell of not being able to even start blurting English, and feeling confident to be part of that majority is a staggering factor in business.

I don't work for the Japanese side, but I notice this trend, that this other side brings forward the warning that communication shall be an issue we won't deal with, basically meaning that, if you want to do business with us, please find solutions so that we can understand, in Japanese, what you tell us. The sadly comical part of this is that the other side is being courted to do business, do open up to new and potential channels of so dearly looked after pieces of fresh ROI. But they won't bulge.

I have seen IT corporations far bigger than your fishmonger's shop telling the same story, lamenting on one side (discreetly though) that business (read, domestic business) is tough, but not responding to the calls of the wild, that is outside Japan. Even when the calls are singing : "we want to buy from you." Those IT business would not think about hiring one or two Indian engineers bilingual enough to do the job.  The sheer idea of it as even a far away possibility won't even faintly pop up in the corporate mind. And this is not limited to IT only. Struggling domestically oriented SME would say no. The communication syndrome is one essential factor that rings in the background of the glum, and not enough consideration and analyses has gone through this.

Which does bring new assignments opportunities from foreign entities still looking to do business with Japan, and asking for more than standard business interpretation. The liaison piece of business interpretation has never felt so meaningful.