Fare in 2011

Some thoughts better not left for 2011

On a recent assignment, during a short break at the beginning of a session around a meeting table, the gentleman on my left side, turned to me and started to engage into non-interactive socialization by asking right away, without any warning or warming : “How do you say “Lady first” in French?” I was taken aback, by the whole dynamics of the setting, the weirdness of the question, the demonstration that this honorable Japanese gentleman who would later on start an incredibly long and slightly pretentious speech in excellent English (meaning I could listen idle) didn't see me as a fellow human, but as an interpreter, that is, a connecting bone in the machinery of communication management as if reduced to a mere linguistic exercise. A piece of lego in a moving construction out of a Christmas box.

I was taken aback for a long 2 or 3 never ending seconds, gasping for a proper answer when light struck and I came up with the most potent answer I could think : “You don't say “Lady first”, you do it!”

That was the end of our conversation besides a short final and conventional exchange of balls where he threw a :

“So you speak Japanese, French English?”

and I threw back the equally conventional :

“Yes, only”, with a dash of faked regrets and humility.

It drew the standard and expected laughs.

Ah! That emptiness of conventional non-conversation with so many Japanese! A matter of degree that is.

But there was a confirmation of something I have been growing keener to perceive in 2010, the fact that if the interpreter is expected, or commended in books, to be an expert in languages and matters of cultures (read “difference of cultures and what awareness of difference means”), there is no warning about that client speaking perfect corporate English as a result of many, many years spent not on a plushy assignment abroad, but having spent most of his career inside the glass and steel walls of a subsidiary in Tokyo of a major blue chip company. Perks and recurrent short trips to the US, and a daily life of conversing in English had made him a “locally internationalized businessman of high rank”. That is, culturally still and deeply a village dweller, and not one of the pervasively called “global village”.

At least, he didn't need an interpreter, but off-time, a coach in “understanding differences in cultural matters” may have brought some change. But I doubt the effectiveness of it.

I am writing this in Venice, not California but the European crumbling splendor of a town, fatty ice creams the mere look at it fills up the stomach. Yet another global village unless you veer away in a sunny or shady backstreet. During the many queuings in airports to miss canceled planes and try but in vain to retrieve our luggage now gone and almost forgotten, I met a somewhat similar kind of person, the highly satisfied linguist who dearly thinks of him as a supernatural genius of communication because of his mastery of many language.

I have already forgotten what we were queuing for, but having heard our mix of Japanese and French family conversation, he amiably called me, propping the day edition of Le Monde, to show me a sentence in the middle of an article, asking me in very good French the reasons why of a verbal structure. Only parrots being asked on the spot, because being and recognized as parrots, to voice over like a skeezy human, do not get surprised and pissed of by an other fellow for whom conversation starts and ends with matters of linguistic, and grammar this time. He just wanted to show off that he new his grammar better than I. I later asked him if he were a tourist guide as he was like chaperoning a bunch of Japanese ladies, but he told me no. He then went into bragging mode, listing the many languages he knew, suggesting he could not exactly tell in which university he was teaching (maybe the Japanese CIA?) as if on a secret mission. He had learned French at the very same school where I distill interpretation for business. I curled back after a few exchange, especially when he started playing the mysterious chap. There was something similar in both situations, where conversation was mystified by this never pleased need to show off. And therefore, conversation never happens.

So, what's up with Venice? Just the fact that in Italian – and that's about the only understanding I can brag about that language - you “aren't” an interpreter, you “do” (fare) the interpreter. That's another reason to long for another life where I could speak Italian, not only cook pasta. “fare” hits right on the nail's head. You “do” it, like a sportswear maker slogan. Which leaves room for other professional activities, with the attached many business cards.

As for the very advanced speakers of the kind I described, clients should try and be aware that fluency may hide profound cultural inconsistencies and blind spots. And these may play diffuse and negative bad tricks in your interpretation of how much “globalized” your counterpart really is.