Nurturing the Liaison side of Interpreting

The liaison side of interpreting as a business liaison interpreter clients may rely upon for more than the A to B and reverse process must be nurtured. I will try and probe into this over the coming months. There is no alternative to a good in-house experience at interpreting granted you develop while in there, or later on, a analytical view of the corporate ecosystem that informs in details about the situations, patterns of dynamics and recurrent scenario that take place in settings where interpretation - consecutive mode - is required. The Liaison side is nurtured with a deep neutral understanding of cultural patterns in play, including the patterns the interpreter projects on the settings and his view of his role and position at large. It is obvious to humbly mention that I would have been incompetent 10 years ago to delve into such subject, by sheer lack of awareness.

One among many tactical approaches I now feel keenly interesting and valuable is the reading of so called self-help books. On this side of the planet, self-help books are aplenty. But approaches to same issues yield different results that shout right from titles that you are no longer in Texas here. Take for example the pun in the series "For dummy" books. The closer equivalent I came across here is "even a monkey could understand" books. Self-help books about issues of how to behave in social settings, or even the Chinese characters you should know comes invariably with the "to avoid shame" ending. On one side, you read to grow. On the other side, you read to protect the self from social shame. There is a deep story I won't shovel into today. The point I want to make here is that there are two approaches to reading self-help books from that other culture, as a reader looking for self-help, or as a reader looking for insights on thought patterns of that other side.

Here is a business culture where redundant patterns of exchange and behaviors are highly formated and therefore easier to forecast. Risks of wrong assumption are never a zero sum, but the margin is small so that you can more confidently bet on what will happen. Protocol is strong, hardly challenged, so much that the how-to bow and exchange cards formula you read in books on proper attitudes in business settings are the very patterns you observe and participate to in-situ. For a "mere" interpreter, this is a key factor that allows to preempt and forecast with higher chances what will happen, how dialog will develop. The Western side is here a factor of patterns disturbance. For nurturing the Liaison side, it is of utmost importance to develop awareness but keep at bay overconfidence with how things can be expected to turn. In briefing stages, and even more in debriefing stages, worrying clients will ask questions to which the liaison interpreter must provide a well thought, well rounded set of reflexions and analysis tips he must assume and deliver in authoritative manner. Otherwise, you are back to your standard role of interpreter, which is fine as long as you are fine with it. I for one am not.

Self-help books are an open vista to what people here consider to be adequate and proper. In Japan, you have to be careful to choose books that are totally native, untainted by the US model. You will flip books to notice any strong references to how they do things in the West = US otherness and keep those at bay. These books won't inform you about what the base salaryman reads and nod to on the platform waiting for the train. In a society where way above 70% of people watching TV believe what they see on the screen - it should be understood time and again how social cynicism is low here - the low brow self-help books on how to behave, how to negotiate, how to bargain are a plain X-ray picture of how people on their majority think and behave.

The sheer number of books on "common sense" 常識 is a proof of concept that patterns of properness are categorized, classified in plain view, and so easily testable in-situ. This approach added with a dose of interaction, off-business, with business partners on the other side, allows for a nurturing self-propelled vortex of better analytical insights at human dynamics at play, without even watching TV. That is one way to nurture the Liaison side and turn a competent consultant.

Utilities as a growth market

The German photovoltaic Q-Cells has entered the Japanese residential solar market. Once a foreign player enters the market, there are two possible dead-end options from a point of view of a non-native freelance interpreter here.

1. The domesticated player will have no need for interpretation.
2. The localized company may still have needs for interpretation at headquarter level, but this will be catered by internally, or sourced through agencies, in such case the foreign interpreter has essentially no chance to get the job.

There are examples of in-house non-native Western interpreters in big Japanese technical corporations. Spending years of in-house experience is a sure way to grow. However, for the standard and rare non-native independent interpreter in Japan, the market is basically located at the margin, at the level where entrants are still not residents but on business trip mode. It is one of the reasons why creating repeaters out of such fluctuating environment is tough. One must instead develop and rely on a high level of flexibility. The Tohoku disaster is having profound but hopefully temporary effect on this business dynamics. Utilities are a segment of potential growth market besides nuclear.

Nuclear reading

Following some online pointers in a previous post, here are three good books to get wet in one of the many technological sujet du jour. I have yet to find adequate equivalent in Japanese, let alone French.

Nuclear Energy in the 21st Century, totally pronuclear and sounding at times weird in the perspective of what happened lately, but offers a 101 coverage of the subject at large. The Reporter's Handbook on Nuclear Material, Energy, and Waste Management is an exceptional book geared at reporters but you don't need credentials to read it. For a hard, engineering perspective and thorough stuff into dismantling things apart, the UK published Nuclear Decommissioning, Waste Management and Environmental Site Remediation is it. Diagonal and selective reading with situational forecasting on priorities are mandatory. There is no time to turn into a nuclear engineer.

Books you must read

Me too by the way. If you are into languages pair where one of the culprit is Japanese, you will want to read books in Japanese about proper business manners, proper business language. Each year around April, when the green new entrants to professional life - at least the visible one clad in business suits - swarm the streets and subways with equal awkward behavior, a slew of books are released on what is the proper attitudes, gestures and manners to acquire and deliver in the office. Perfect life is idealized as business suit here more than elsewhere.

Business manner is a hot business by the way. If you read Japanese, just look at the Nikkei offer of DVDs on how to exchange business cards and more. And look at the jaw-dropping price tags. Books are way much more affordable.

Why would you want to read these books for as an interpreter? Not to exactly fit but to develop a neutral, strategic understanding of what is "correct" and "normal" within Japanese business circles. When browsed from a social anthropology point of view, these books that are not exactly elating turn indeed into fascinating reads.

If you are a non-Japanese early in your Japanese life, you will have to exercise restrain on judging whatever goes against your humanistic views, gender equality, and the sense of bowing angle degree. It is the way it is. You will still have to develop an explanatory speech on these devoid of sly and tongue-in-cheek humor. Better know what is local correctness as a strategic knowledge sooner than later. It will help tremendously as an interpreter too, because more than once, your non-Japanese clients getting a little tensed or simply puzzled by all the business ballet in full swing may ask you - when they are green too - how to behave, where to sit if you received no clear cue from the ushering lady, and what is the meaning of all that. Answering back "that's the way it is in Japan" is a sign you are not qualified.

What is liaison interpreting

Liaison interpreting has different meanings whether you deal through an agency or directly with the interpreter. Who are the most appropriate persons to define what is liaison interpreting? Practitioners. Don't leave to others the task of defining based on experience what your job, role, task are about.

A liaison interpreter is first an interpreter, but a liaison interpreter should be able upon request to provide more than interpreting. That is where we split with the holy scriptures. I would not want to hire most of the liaison interpreters I have met over +20 years. As long as they perform the automatic words spewing machine way and no more, they are a business breaking factor.
 

The added value of true liaison interpreting should include as an option the mundane scheduling support, visit timetable management, but also the strategic negotiating with the partners you will meet in order to pave the way for you to get the utmost benefit out of your business meetings. That is what repeaters clients sometimes ask me to perform. You need to have repeaters to be entitled to do that. But as long as you leave your clients with the impression you are a just but a "linguistic articulation", that is what you will be. It is fine to be content with that. But there is more to liaison interpreting.

A competent business liaison interpreter can act upon request as an informal agent of yours and business communication facilitator. No interpretation agency is able to provide such interpreter, and standard interpreters consider that the tasks beyond interpreting is not their business. I don't agree with them.

From the point of view of pure interpreting, liaison interpretating allows for communication to flow between small to medium groups of people in discussion, presentation, negotiation or training settings, while assuring that the whole message is delivered on both sides. Technically speaking, liaison interpreting is consecutive interpreting with the interpreter working in both languages. It involves at times pure consecutive interpreting when the speaker talks for a while and the interpreter delivers after the speech, and fast give and take interactions in natural discussions where the interpreter must keep pace with the flow, helping to reduce at best the interruption due to the consecutive distribution of communication in both ways, but also constantly checking that the other side got the message, and suggesting you repeat or re-frame the message to secure understanding. 

Consecutive or liaison interpreting may take time, but is much more precise and effective with natural speech in professional settings than simultaneous interpretation. It is time well invested granted the interpreter knows his job. Liaison interpreting allows for both sides to fully consider what is said and talk back with a good strategy. A good liaison interpreter strives to shorten the delay of consecutive communication and make the encounter with your partners well worth the time spent.

Many differences of speech patterns, attitudes and non-verbal cues are involved with communication between Western and Japanese speakers. A pro-active yet discreet interpreter should help you navigate the cultural differences and go the extra mile for your advantage. In the languages pairing where Japanese is involved, cultural, communication, and rhetorical gaps are so huge that standard discourse about liaison interpreting simply does not qualify. 

Years of experience have shown that unless your interlocutors speak seriously good English - and has serious long term experience living in Western countries with an understanding of non-Japanese discourse dynamics, you will waste time and money going globbish. Fuzzy, ineffective communication will invariably happen and slowdown your business hopes and expansion here. Hiring the services of a proactive interpreter is an investment into your future.

A competent liaison interpreter is a good communication manager who knows when to take command and when to lay back in standard neutral interpreting. It might sound shocking that an interpreter should take command, but experience shows typically in messy meetings that a call for regulation and effective communication must be dispatched and generates positive effects. The interpreter should at least recommend on the sides to his clients to take action and not wait for things to calm down. A standard interpreter, especially educated in the automatons of interpreting schools in Japan will not even refrain from acting, but won't suggest any action to his customer, because of the holy but inappropriate rule of neutrality and non-intervention in such situation. A poor and shy interpreter can be quickly overflowed by the situation and put you, the client, at risk. 

An obvious and last recommendation : do not rely on an interpreter provided by the other side to help you navigate the business setting and provide a debriefing. In business, come with your own interpreter.

Negotiating

There are many documents scattered all over the internet referring to the theme "negotiating with the Japanese". Several books have been published. Many are focusing on cultural differences, starting with a long description of Japanese society and roles within corporations. These are usually better left ignored. They confuse the reader with no deep experience with Japan and irritate those with experience. But more than this, they are useless. Too many times, writers are not seasoned Japanese speakers which should be a defacto disqualification factor. I found however one short 3 pages memorandum wrapping up in excellent manner what is to be known and done. It was written by attorney Mr. Edward M. Lebow.  It is obviously a must read for interpreters and communication consultants.

More bows, crowd meetings and convenience stores

There are more bows performed and more bows to come. TEPCO CEO is touring refugees locations, very often schools, and bowing profusely. The newer pictures zoom back and offer a better perspective of group bowing. In the local press, this late show of remorse and compassion - formal but how could it be different? - is ushered in as a "long time waiting" necessary event. Sincerity has nothing to do with the acting although in individual comments among Japanese, sincerity is at times questioned. But the debate around sincerity leads to nowhere. The point is to do it. Now, if language bridging was a necessary act, one of these bowers could be you, could it be?

Mending, possible or not, starts even late with necessary gestures. The sloppiness of words saying "sorry" translated into foreign languages is a show of culture gaps which are natural. The message by PM Kan published in several Western newspapers the other day is just the same example, sloppy in it flowery vaporous . It yet means something in Japanese that can't be translated, only explained, and challenge the mighty difficulty to admit first without judging that differences do exist. Et voila.

A visit at a potential new client. They are new to Japan. Some may be in Japan for years but always new, so slim their interactions with Japanese is. The reverse is true. They have meetings after meetings with gazillions of Japanese on the other side of the table. Call it crowd meeting. Everybody is talking at the same time and for the sake of saving time, the interpreters are required to perform chuchotage. I am afraid this method in such situation is not appropriate, but is it the role of the interpreter to suggest there are over solutions? First of all, the "everybody is talking at the same time" is a cultural issue, because if it were meetings among Japanese "alone", thing would be managed differently and lateral talking frown at. There are talking all at the same time because there are no meeting leaders to check that this kind of useless interaction is tamed down. The role of interpreter-mediator is for the future.

Of convenience stores, and nothing related to interpreting. There are many stories of efforts to rebuild, but among those, the early role of convenience store operators is the most striking. In the crippled regions, the early birds trying and recreate what they call here the "life line" were individual drivers and operators of goods delivery, and the convenience stores who work hand in hand. Early delivery of rices balls and mineral water was hailed as miraculous and brilliant. In the newspapers this morning, one such convenience store top is upbeat, forecasting growth within and fueled by the mess. Same goes for package deliveries corporations.

The latest "added service" delivery corporations I noticed a while back was verbal. The delivery staff would pop up with a package and say sorry to deliver "earlier" than planned, "but I was just running by your home". When the service is perfectly ticking and reducing prices is not an option, wording is the last customer satisfaction strategy.

Isn't it time to change the script?

In some counselling book about how to change (bad) relationship with your teenager, but also your partner, there is a strong recommendation to change the script, the speech, to change the stance, the point of view, knowing well enough that the standard script will yield the standard remark, drama, dispute, fighting and reciprocal shame. Changing the redundant script requires a prior essential step : getting aware, recognizing that there is a redundant script in play.

Then I read this :

"I have not worked as an interpreter that long, but despite this I have several times been asked by the interpreter user (clerk or other official) "And what do you do for a living?"

Well, what do I do for I living? What do you mean for a living? I work as an interpreter!?

Now, I have my research paper to write (it is currently not going very well), I have the Law course I take for interpreters and translators, and I also take a unit in Lusophone African culture and reality. So I guess I have other things to do. But what bothers me tremendously is that people believe that in addition to interpretation, I have to have another job, as if interpreting did not qualify as a full-time profession? When I say that I am also studying, people ask what I will become? Teacher, perhaps?

I wonder how some people think, is interpreting not a real profession?"

It is reported in this blog.

It is a redundant script post, and, sorry to the author, a generic grunting most any field interpreter could write anywhere on the planet. I wrote in the same vein sometimes in the past. The sequel of that something you feel when asked out of the blue "and what do you do for a living" is here to stay, whether you move on turning into an even better interpreter or shifting job.

Typically, there are questions asked but not answered, like this fundamental one popping out early in the article : "I wonder how some people think, is interpreting not a real profession". Nowhere in the following text will you find an answer. This a symptom of something. The question is lingering in air like a still cloud. It doesn't deserve an answer, does it?

But wait, wait! Let's go back a little bit and look straight into the eyes at the incident :

 " And what do you do for a living?"

Right now, copy-pasting this sentence, I can remember a slew of similar situations, one being a famous : "Ha, yeah, did that in the past but I have moved to things more serious".

I think you, we, should stand still here, not throw again anymore into space a question not to be answered, but keenly observe the feelings generated by such remarks, put names on these feelings, then start moving on to something more constructive which is called self-legitimation.

Bruised, offended, ashamed, irate, gasping for air and reaching for a revolver. What else? Other words are in demand but the core word here is "shame", and the feeling is "being ashamed".  Now, before going on, read this book and come back here. It won't heal immediately and the scars are for life but it will help in the long term. A missing element for building self-professional legitimization is professional pairing.

Why on earth do they not ask the same question, "And what do you do for a living?", to physicians, politicians, lawyers, butchers and fishmongers? You see, I too am pasting into the air a question I love and hate to try and answer to, because the very question generates a strong sense of malaise in me, humor won't heal things anytime soon. The answer is however very simple : they ask or brag they can do the same, because they don't know. And the best medicine to start with is not to go defensive and teach them a good lesson, no. Can you teach them a good lesson by the way? Are they reading your blog? No, and no.

The healing starts instead with teaching "us" a good lesson. Let's communicate. Some 40 regular readers of this blog - merci beaucoup - most seemingly "making a living as an interpreter", not selling fish. Have we met, will we meet, have we made a single effort to go beyond writing a comment, to go beyond pasting a link in Twitter or throwing into hot air a less than 140 signs "Yeah! love it!"? When is our next webinar over Skype scheduled? Never. When is our next annual conference taking place? Never and nowhere.

The problem I referred to time and again in the past with definitive malaise is this "us". As far as interpreters are concerned, unless you are a proud member of AIIC, chances you are a member of nothing.  Communities - read, "professional communities of field interpreters" are so rare that chances you belong to none is probably in the +95% range. I know, there is no such community next door (unless you believe ProZ to be one). And why should I try and create one? We have Facebook. Isn't that plenty enough?

Let's shift back to the script issue. I suggest to change the script, to stop the offended therefore defensive, sly (= trying to heal the wound suffered) innuendo at those (bastards) who know NOTHING! about my JOB! Let's try and do this, starting with the following proposition.

"My job is allowing two people who don't speak the same language to communicate. I am a communication enabler."

Create your own short sentence.

Now can (we) you deliver a speech, impromptu, around this not-defensive affirmation, explanatory speech of five minutes to a crowd, just explaining what your job is about, while totally avoiding the script that "contrary to what (some f.....g!) people think, not everybody can do it at the snap of the fingers"?

Probably, the best scenario would be to imagine that you have 5 minutes to explain to a class of 10 years old or less what you do for a living (and keep smiling). That would be the first step to change the script.

To be continued ...

Bartering for cheese

A short job with S. in Shibuya this morning. It is both an interpreter and negotiator job. S. gives me the agenda and prefers that I cook around it. He knows that at times, your Western talk dish must be remunched actively by the interpreter to make it appealing, that is, taste Japanese. Contrary to some holy scriptures about the don'ts that concern the interpreting task, S. considers that you need to give the interpreter free rein to rearrange and reweave the message rather than throat push the Western rhetoric. He gives me the yolk of the discourse, that is purpose, mood and objective, and I pour olive oil on it and whip it up.

The home run mission is to mollify a real estate agent into acting and plead to some apartment owner for considering revising downward a rent fee now being a major burden, thanks to TEPCO and Fukushima. I love such mission. Arrogance is in : I pretend to be good at it, not always but often. It is an opportunity to improvise, theater wise, around a basic script with a purpose. I can make the difference between the Japanese listener getting bored, or getting as was the case today emotional. There are themes that strike right onto the good nerves these days : we are all on the same boat with this one, cost reduction is a common requisite, we are not intent to leave, we love the place, the people, we love Japan. I wax it knowingly into redundancy. This is the most dangerous part. Too much repeated wax using same vocabulary patterns generate sighs. Loosing track of voice and tremolo is a sure looser. Again, sometimes I fell, but the relationship with the client made of reciprocal respect, I suspect is a key ingredient in this exercise at massaging the message the shiatsu way and getting a compassionate ear. The understanding of the client's purpose, keeping within the limits of client's intend yet flourishing the message in the pleading rhythm that is specific of here - you don't plead the same way in different places and languages, are a delicate equilibrium that belongs to improvisation in jazz.

I charge a minimum of a half-day fee however short the assignment is, which should be the way things are to be done. But S. is a special client with special needs in original situations. I know he can pay but I decide to play another, different "relief game" when I hear before we part that he is going to Italy. That's were the cheese in the title props up. I decide to ask him later not for money, but for a big chunk of parmigiano reggiano. It is the first time I barter and won't do it again anytime soon. But the fun of it all makes my day.

On a lighter side

On a lighter side, the terrible mess around Fukushima is generating typical stories of bracing for revival, the "gambarimasu" phoenix type of narratives they are supposed to love here. "Supposed" because success here is less important than effort. They do love the vain efforts, maybe more than the success stories. But anyway, many examples of "restarting from less than zero" are pushed forward in the media. I would suggest readers of Japanese to register free to the Nikkei BP web site and follow at least the free articles published by the Nikkei Business magazine, those about Tohoku revival. This week issue of the paper magazine is about the crimes and sins of TEPCO. It's quite impressive to see such words printed by the magazine. Let's hope this is not the usual scapegoat scenario which is, with the "gambarimasu" vein, a standard feature of Japan.

And on an even lighter, utterly unrelated side, I found a cheap (it was never costly) copy of John Kenneth Galbraith "The Great Crash 1929" and I am reading it again bits by bits. I remember the pleasure I had reading it first time, both with the story and the writing style. In the original "On the origins of this book", Mr. Galbraith recalls the pleasure he had to research and write the book "working under the Orosco murals on the ground floor" of the Baker Library at Darmouth College. The nice thing about the Internet is that you can query for pictures that illuminate the reading, like this one of the library under the same murals here.

Vivisecting the market perspective until it hurts

There is an interesting side to the course I am teaching tonight as always on Monday. It's a rather light but practical course on business interpreting, with a broad meaning, where we work on a real Power Point document about some "technical" subject - last week was a timely description of the state of the Fukushima nuclear plant. As I tell often to my students who are most of them working not in interpretation but rightly take the course to gain a different perspective on language acquisition, it is the course I wish I had.

The "interesting" side would most probably be better referred to as "cynical". There's but few professional reasons - à priori - to aim at professional Japanese-French interpretation except as a potential side job. The market is so small and captive. The course is ushered in as an opportunity to reproduce in the classroom a close to reality setting, one among other possible settings which is the business meeting with consecutive interpreting.  There are other possible realities but this one is the easiest to set up.

The Mar. 11 has had incredible impact on interpreting at large. Unless you work for the US iRobot in Fukushima, or some of the engineering corporations from abroad maneuvering to get a chunk of the nuclear mess market, chances are you are jobless currently. The problem is to try and get feedback from the market. It has always been a problem. Most interpreters I have met here are shunning at pair meeting, out of pride, or out of discomfort, them having to bear the consequence of stress from a negatively oriented market. Unless you know a direct "competitor" willing to share a little bit, you are lost in haze, all the more when you are out of the agencies scope. And if you base your analysis on bits of rumors, you risk mental hazard. Being a non-native in Japan practicing interpretation between Japanese and French makes you a cousin of the recently introduced new Panda at the Ueno zoo in Tokyo. Pandas are a rare species and the "locally generated" market is designed so that access to it is very, very narrow to put it under optimistic light. The point in assessing the markets outside the local one, and reaching some sense has been to put it under hypothetical light, and start working on it.

One agency who gave me the opportunity to work as an interpreter maybe three times over +20 years (many more in the past with translation) called me last week. We had a chance to talk, too briefly. We could meet face to face. We are a 15 walk distance away but things are different here. They wanted to get voices from abroad about people's view on the current state of Japan. Was radiation such a concern?

The market,this agency market, mostly international conferences, is staled. Dead. Conferences to be held in Okinawa, that is a close to 2000 km away from the Fukushima plant have all been canceled. The closer you come to the capital city, the easier it is to infer what is happening. Although I am not concerned with international conferences, it is a sure sign. Another sign is touristic influx. It has slumped, unsurprisingly. Although I am not in the touristic market, except for one to three times a year and on totally order made confidential fashion, this is yet another indicator. People are not coming by a high percentage.

Some years ago, I bet that the market was multiform, mostly English, and a deep understanding of it was a requisite to try and figure out where I was standing. The conclusion long postponed out of a lack of competence to vivisect the ecosystem came under harsh but hopeful light years later. Thanks to the Internet and opening a shop in the clouds, I could expect to be found. It worked to some extend, seldom enough to fulfill the month, but side activities, including teaching, compensated although with ups and downs. Also, as you say lightly, interpreting was (profoundly) fun and intellectually fulfilling. It still is.  Why should I quit?

I discovered a few facts that helped further vivisect the market. Here are the major features :

- There was a market googling for an interpreter to meet in Tokyo (rarely elsewhere in Japan), skipping the agency altogether. Is skipping the agency done on purpose, or has scouting resources direct a matter of fact? I don't know.

- That market was not made out of single businessmen or tiny SMEs. I was surprised to discover that they covered all the gamut in terms of corporate size, from the consulting cabinet to the big boys. A department in a big, big engineering company would contract me for a visit in Japan. That department was in itself a corporation. The department was the client, not the company at large.

- Inquiries would come direct, from the future service user, or indirect, from an assistant. In Japan, a corporation would invariably rely on a local agency, and not expect the interpreter to be foreign, at least for Western languages. Exceptions do not rule in the Japanese-French pair. The implications here were telling a story of dynamic and innovative research method from the client's side. Google was King and being visible under Thy Light a requisite more than ever.

- Clients, at least those transformed, wouldn't care my not being a native English speaker. I must highlight here that the majority of inquiries would come from English speaking countries, or English as a matter of fact lingua franca for business (Germany comes as an example). France was out in that sense starting from day One. The French speaking clients would be rare and occasional. Creative usage of Google would be anecdotal from France. GoogleAd was a sure judge on that matter. It has more to do with differences of human interactions, the French version being surprisingly closer to the Japanese - under the contemporary French cool and "tutoiement de rigueur" than one could fathom.

- The preference for a Japanese lady interpreter (proved many times - Japan has been a Western's wet dream since the 19th century, especially in Japonism stroke Europe), what with the push toward lower prices - the more the Euro would gain, the less clients would be willing to pay - yet additional proofs that this one market was not only peculiar, but resembling the inquiries from India and South-East Asia where they expect the interpreter to charge less than what they pay hourly at MacDonalds in Tokyo. I have put under the knife the French language market of visitors to Japan, both in terms of how it is generated and channeled, so much I could draw a map. In fact, the map exists but is private.

- Clients would seldom repeat. You could attribute this to several causes : I am a bad interpreter, I am too expensive for the budget. Bragging apart, it appears that in most cases, it was a matter of single shot mission impossible, a specific need to have an interpreter in a situation that was exceptional, a rare visit to Japan, a rare face to face encounter with local partners, a one shot trial at selling something.

It also suggests that surviving means having a portfolio of recurrent clients. When clients do not come to Japan as it is the case right now, the market, that is, that very market dependent on the influx of businessmen, is dead. Any exception will have to be treated as an exception. Exceptions don't inform but feed the buzz around the coffee machine.My next scheduled recurrent client visit comes next month and will be a 1.5 day assignment. I am also an unofficial agent to them but this time may be the last time. They will probably quit trying and push into Japan anymore.

Where do we go from here? There are a set of very limited options based on vivisection like analysis of the state of the markets (take note of the "s"). I might have input from one of it at a meeting tomorrow.

To be continued ...

Psychological First Aid for Interpreters

Although not the role of the interpreter per se, knowledge of what psychological first aid is all about, considering that the interpreter will be requested to take initiative to engage with victims, must be a requisite. There must be role confusions and thresholds not to trespass, but at least, knowing ahead of time what the task would look like seems to be mission critical. The Psychological First Aid Field Operations Guide is a must read. I also comes among other languages in Japanese.

In support of technologies

I am watching the presentation of mobile carrier Softbank top Masayoshi Son on his views about the energy shift from nuclear to other sources. Here is the link. I hope this will be the opportunity to this company for a shift of slogan, scrap the current "SOFTBANK MOBILE will make mobile phones more fun and innovative". Innovative is OK. Usefull and life saving are keys, the essential factors, with "allowing people to meet". Kill the fun inside please.

Fun is lame, in the same league as "kawaii".  No, it's even more than lame, it's emitic these days. Japan chocked on brainless fun a month ago. It's time to be adult. Leave the "if it's no fun then it's boring" to the kawaii throng. The opposite of fun is grown-up. In the early days of the crisis, some virtuous, sincerely and genuinely supportive French graphic artists piled up somewhere online a series of graphical expression of their sorrows and the will to help in some way. The outpouring of help from outside Japan that doesn't reach the ears of people here is staggering. It is a good thing. It is genuine. They have been raised from day one with manga and anime movies, exclusively from Japan. Japan is their Eldorado. They have monopolized as it started in the 19th century the descriptive discourse about Japan. Easy to do when your object of love is mostly voiceless, except in-house.

One of these illustrations I remember was showing one of this heavy, anti-aerodynamic parallelepiped robot with arms, legs and huge box like thoracic cage lifting a victim from some wrecked up place, or was it the roof of a building? Whatever, it was genuine, heart wrenching, and made me nauseous at the same time. There were no robots to save anyone in the core of "real life". The one that came into the picture in Fukushima are as "fun looking" as lawn mowers. They suck. Their articulated arms are not sexy. Their move hectic or seemingly clunky. Their scope of capacity limited. Their "drama factor" down to zero. But they deliver.

As Mr. Son says sometimes 10 minutes in the video, even elementary schoolers in Japan these day know what a "pressure vessel" is (atsuryokuyouki 圧力容器). The daily news and buzz is awash, nay, drowned onto cathartic volumes of technology speech, not limited to nuclear. Engineering is in, cool is dead.

Parallel to this, my single class of French for science and technologies was canceled due to the lack of students. There is irony in the fact that the very school where I am teaching a business interpretation class between Japanese and French is having this month a hoopla on "Earth Day". In the rich library of the school, you will find not a single magazine on science and technology, not a single book. Cheese, wine, fashion and gossip, what with the recent "soft philosophy" meek mix. Who cares? As the power to be explained recently, people are learning French for "recreational purpose". I for one am having recreational hell of a time and contentment reading the MIT Technology Review.

It is a shift toward more grown-up interest for technologies that is required, not a going back to the kawaii and hopeless Astroboys saviour of Planet Japan. Energy is in, but also logistics, food safety, radioactivity monitoring, decontamination, decommissioning to come. The list is unending. And this doesn't mean you can't love poetry and cooking at the same time, but why should this be argued? Technology talk massively happens in English, until you noticed that your German customers, as last year, start talking among them, in German, about their engineering issues. That is a big discovery, isn't it?All this to say that it is great time for grown-up interest in technology.

No education will do

... unless it starts with communal self-awareness. This is an answer to Mr. Brian Harris of Translatology's fame, in reaction to his comment in a previous post, and I thank him to provoke reflexion.

Forget about educating "them". Start with educating you, together with other you. When was the last time you read a book focusing on (liaison) interpreting that is not an academic lofty stiff upper lip stuff, the one book that made you react : "Hey! That's about me, about my job!" In liaison interpreting at least, that was 15 years ago with The Liaison Interpreter Handbook. When was the last time you talked with pairs in a relaxed atmosphere about just that, the job you've been doing? I can't tell you.

Was it last year when the Financial Times published an article on "how to choose an interpreter for business"? I plundered and adapted the content for my self-promotion web site. But the shocking side of the article was that, there was no voice of any interpreter in there. Only the "client" was interviewed. You don't interview Pandas for sure. There are mammal specialists to answer for them. But when it comes to out-of-the-booth interpretation, anybody but the interpreter has something to say. So I invite you to try and apply the following experience, at your own risks. Go visit your doctor or butcher (same stuff?), and try in the conversation to clearly suggest that you know what medicine, or butchery, is all about. And bear the consequences. In the case of the butcher, knives may start flying. In the case of interpretation (the lowly self-esteemed out of the booth stuff not in front of the camera, that is the massively practiced mode worldwide), too many people who do not practice have a better idea about what it is, word-mongering between A and B, was it?

So in order to educate, you need a voice. And to get a voice, you've got to develop a discourse on what you do, what is the job you do, a discourse that goes beyond the title on your business card you've been modifying the design of a dozen times since the past 20 years. That is why educating the client is a far, far, far away land to explore in a far, far away future. At least, stick up for yourself, professionally, and develop a self-descriptive discourse of what is at stake, what are your roles (noticed the plural?), in order to tell your client you are in charge of the definition of your job. Many times, it's less a matter of telling than showing you are cool and mastering the setting (even when you fake it).

What should work? Local associations of interpreters. I am jealous of Australia as it seems there are professional associations where butchers talk about meat there. Let's keep things straight here : I wouldn't write this blog if I had a place where to talk about meat on a monthly basis, with other meat mongers who are not afraid to meet each other, because they have gone way past the joke of "we can't meet because we are competitors".  From where I am standing here in Tokyo, there is no such place, and the reasons why would be too long and destructive to explain. But hey! we have the www to speak out and discuss between far, far away countries, haven't we? I would like pointers beyond ProZ. Interpreters are too busy to speak so time - and the will to do it - is short to further speak about the profession(s). Just like bicycle, you don't talk, you grind the wheel. I have heard not so many same pattern things justifying the "I won't talk to you because just by meeting you will suck up my customers' list and suggest them I am worse than you are, which is the reverse by the way". This is even less than half-joking, believe me. So how can you ever think about educating when self-awareness too many times stink like this (at least in the country of the melting Sun)?

And another thing which is eating lunch like cancer, at least here again : you can't stick for yourself if you accept to work for free. Volunteer interpreting is a plague, a nasty SARS. It doesn't mean volunteering can't happen though (see, you always start pleading for your job in preemptive manner). It can, but based on sound awareness. In the current situation with the Fukushima mess, I have heard from sure sources that someone is interpreting for free for a major player in this international engineering and political ballet. You can't do the Saint-Bernard stuff without some brain and mistake the Red Cross from a corporation. It tells, here at least, a too big story to swallow alone. So forget about educating the client. Start with a sharing based self-awareness nurturing environment. I've got to cross fingers until they crack, or maybe move to Australia. In the meantime, the self-mumbling on this blog goes on, par défaut.

PS. The book illustrated here is good. It's for kids (the Japanese version of the same book is not for kids .... real!). The one for grown-ups elsewhere by the same authors is "Dynamics of Power". It has 20 years this year and still pristine.

Bowing and slouching

Angle of bowing tells a story. By watching the still picture, you shut out the noise of firecrackers like shutters you can hear on the video version. Next, you find the video and observe the ire, pretty tamed down, parsimonious in words. Eyes won't meet. On the right side is Fukushima prefecture's governor. On the top left side is TEPCO boss.

Strategic slouching with interpreter Sherwood F. Moran questioning a Japanese war prisoner.

It's the situation, stupid!

In an article in the current issue of The Economist (will this link function?) about disaster prevention, I bumped into an expression unknown to me that triggered yet a sense of "that's it! that's about it!". It is "situational awareness". In most over the phone interpretation situations I have been through, where a specialist of a domain X was discussing usually first time with an interviewer (not a journalist) with many questions about domain X, the difficulty was magnified by a set of standard inadequacies that would never be mended over time. That is why I quit, and also because the 2008 shock pressed the pay way too much down. The crux list is long. Exceptions took place but rarely.


- No questionnaire ahead of time. The subject would be announced in a maximum 10 words sentence.
- No briefing with at least one side, the interviewer preferably, both in an ideal world.
- Few if no hints about the subject's angle at stake. You are announced "generics in the treatment of epilepsy", and discover right when entering the action scene that the real subject is the state of authorities approval of a certain pill AAA in the local market and the chance for it to get the green light.
- Of course, as with any standard translation agency, there is no route to request for clarification and suggest a few tricks to make the communication valuable for everyone.


In such settings that are plentiful in liaison interpreting face to face, the interpreter knows enough that the situation is everything, and that preparation when allowed should be situational more than thematic, and made all the more easier that she grasps as much situational elements as possible ahead of time to prepare, meaning in short notice settings especially, not to er in streams of knowledge that can wait for another time. The theory of nuclear fission won't help when the discussion is about methods to scoop highly radioactive water from a plant trench. Situations should lead preparation, and briefing with clients is the most appropriate step to delineate the tracks of learning needed to be operative quickly. 


I leave it to theoreticians but there is something that clicks with the concept of situational awareness and better performance of highly technical liaison interpreting. You can read the Wikipedia entry and see for yourself, especially the Endsley's model of situation awareness map that sounds somewhat familiar, although interpretation is never mentioned. 

Implementing the learning environment

http://www.webspirationpro.com/publish.php?i=921370a29b73

How to tackle a new, difficult, highly technical domain in a context where the assignment is long term? I set aside the so common but awkward situation where you have a few hours assignment that won't renew anytime soon with a knowledge intensive domain. I have had several dozens opportunities to battle with this in specialized over the phone service delivery in the past and mused about it in the past.

Here, the setting pertains to the situation described in the previous post. It is an ideal description, in the sense that at the time, it didn't start from day one with full understanding and the conditions to develop a learning and sharing ecosystem.

The map you can peruse here has no intention to be complete in any way. It points in more details to core issues that, in an ideal world, should be taken into account right from the start. I wonder if the Facebook and social network generations will be more geared at this kind of environment. I want to believe so.

Setting up a 24/24 crisis remote interpretation service

The blitzkrieg of saying hello wide and large, spam like, I unleashed yesterday through XING (a LinkedIn look-alike service) has generated unexpected results. Besides a "I definitely don't want to meet you" answer to which I could agree in reciprocity, I have received kind words from various corners of the planet, although many from Japan. Some haven't registered to XING, but as I highlighted, I am no stakeholder in the system and doubtful of the value of it all unless you decide to go out of the wood and start shaking hands and having coffees.

One noticeable reaction came from an old Japanese business acquaintance suddenly eager to meet. He had "thought" in the past to do so but ... you know the arguments for procrastination. How infinite and generic they can be. So an appointment is in the box now, and even though I do not want to think that there's something coming beyond coffee, it is seemingly related to an experience that started circa 2005 and lingered with ups and downs through 2008. It also was a major trigger to start writing this blog. Or put in this way : it was a major trigger to look straight into the face of that multifaceted job too many times spelled by users rather than actors, that is, liaison interpreting. The story goes like this, in summary mode.

Sometimes in 2005, I was contacted out of the blue by an unknown Tokyo SME asking me  : "Would you be interested to do over the phone interpretation for medical research?". The situation was such that if I had been told to go to the Moon the next hour, I would have said "Sure, give me a minute to grab my wetsuit". My experience in medical interpretation was absolute zero. The plot quickly appeared to be a scrambling for the setting up of a service with no reference, no "déjà-vu" to rely onto, that of a 24/24 ready for action in less than 5 minutes system for allowing Japan and the US to discuss within the scope of an international clinical study. The conceptual map of what was basically involved is here.

It was at first guess work, first in setting up systems, protocols, methodology, securing resources and many more issues. I was supposed to interpret although the go sign had been in waiting for months already, but quickly got involved in everything above. Now with the distance of time, I could write a detailed postmortem analysis but I will shorten the task instead on core issues and lessons that might one day come back to usage.

Why create a system from scratch when there are corporations offering over the phone interpretation?

Because these are totally inadequate where highly specialized interpreters, always the same people, are needed.

Aren't there highly specialized interpreters?

There must be many, but those people are busy, or loath at working in hazy conditions as was such the case. The money was very enticing for a B or B+ level interpreter without enough assignments. It was too low for a busy interpreter who would risk to miss the virtuous loop of work and recommendations by stepping out of the loop through dedicated X number of days to stay at home and wait for the phone to ring. Even being paid to wait was not a big enough incentive. And again, that SME was unknown on the local interpreting market.

Securing human resources

So they had to tap into the mercenary type of people being interpreters just by claiming they are. Isn't it the way it starts for so many of us not issued from Swiss schools and the likes? It so happened that at a time, close to 10 people scattered over three countries at least allowed to cover a 24/24 on-call ready to unleash interpretation service in a tense, crisis set-up. On one side, a doctor would submit a patient who had reached near-lethal state for a green light from the other side upon examination to proceed with drug testing. Time was limited once the operation started, and many issues arose in the making that sounded like an episode of mission impossible. It went overall rather well until the program ended. As I am not allowed to go into deeper details, I would instead list up a few key issues that were raised, highlighting that there is no easy issue and that it does cost money to set up something seriously working in quasi-permanent crisis management mode and mood. Because the situation was an anticipated crisis management help service.

Systems:

- Although the process involved audio conference call using a Japanese service to do so, redundancy was quickly perceived to be essential, starting with means to know quasi-instantly who was ready to be online, and who was ready to back-up the interpreter on duty whenever unexpected things happened. They almost happened every time. At the time, even on the US side, Skype was more a word than a tool. It saved the day many times, including in chat mode, by allowing for instance one listening side to type and send to the interpreter that very core word making the communication to choke at that moment. If it were to be done again, additional layers of redundancy should be used like Twitter and more dedicated tools. Even standard landline phone proved to be  flaky, and audio quality at times appallingly bad due to the audio conference service layer. The choice of audio conference service provider should be led by two core issues : ease of front-end use and audio quality. And a third, multiple access points including the usage of mobile phones.

People:

- There was no specialized interpreter for the subject at stake, and there will never be. They have to be created. A very difficult, technical, medical subject it was, meaning that allowing interpreters to learn is a requisite. Helping them do so, not just asking them to look on their own for information and learning resources is mission critical. Therefore, people ready and eager to invest time and energy, all paid, to delve into difficult stuff are mandatory. They can be found more easily with non-seasoned interpreters.

- Interpreters don't share. They are terribly bad at this and it starts early. Any personal example you may think about that contradicts this assertion is just that, an example.  Otherwise, interpreters professional network without big names would be easier to find and join. Therefore, a learning environment based on sharing must be implemented from day one. We had a private wiki, but tools do not generate the usage of them. So sharing and learning as a community must be ironed in as a compulsory rule from hiring, coming with processes like remote training classes (we did it), remote presentations from specialists (we did it), scheduled remote meetings to discuss issues and solutions, we did it. But as the discovery of this came late, and there never was a sense of community, let alone of a sharing community. When recruiting people, highlighting clear and plain that going solo won't do is a requisite. Some interpreters must be raised as leaders in that effort.

Autonomy:

- The process was task and protocol intensive, generating a lot of stress while interpretation hadn't yet started. The interpreter of the day was like the shuttle captain at the command of the cockpit, manipulating many gears, talking to Houston and on average two or three other sides before the real tripartite interpretation session would take place. Often, the session duration would turn way shorter than the preparation tasks.

Many stress induced, but also technical issues like plainly loosing connexion on supposedly stable landlines happened many time. Each session was a heroic session reminiscing of the Mission Impossible series, the old ones. All this required the interpreter in charge to judge and take action swiftly on how to proceed when protocols would go wrong. Additional layers of protocols came in, adding yet confusion even for manual oriented people aware that at times, action required the dreaded "improvisation" to be switched on.

After some time, we would be allowed not to stay home but always ready to be contacted through mobile phones, I carried two, as well as a laptop with wireless module, serious headset (a big, big issue even at home) and a bottle of mineral water. Among the thrilling situations I can remember was being called while fetching my son at the daycare center, scrambling into a taxi, deploying all the imperfect hardware, reaching home with hard and the soft human ware thrilled by the thrill happening, for a correct landing later on. Another time, at a coffee shop where good earphones played a crucial role although they are never good enough, only messed by a drained battery saved a few minutes later by finding a replacement at a nearby convenience store. That's why you don't do the James Bond stuff in the middle of nowhere.

I almost did though, one under a lamp at night in the street and the hallo of a welcome vending machine, another time crouched behind a car on a parking lot. It was warm and not raining. Doing it at home was a little bit more comfortable, but in any case, it asks for autonomy, which is part of the themes to raise in the learning community dynamics.

Wording decontamination process

The announcement of France Areva procurement to TEPCO of a water decontamination process installation in the news this morning is a typical case of technical wording confusion. You get drown into it just when you want to float. Let's try and do the cleaning by checking first whether Japanese is the culprit.

The process first, that of water decontamination, is referred to depending on your news source as the generic 水処理 that keeps the "contamination" word out of scope. The scum comes with a vengeance, and question marks, with a choice of  汚染水浄化, or a plain 汚染水処理. You can even bump into a 汚水処理 that gets rid of the dirty 染 altogether. As for plants 工場, or installations/facilities 施設 , but also process or device 装置, you now can choose among these solutions, still guessing how they are calling this stuff in-situ.

水処理施設
汚染水浄化装置
汚水処理施設

I's about cleaning dirty water, which comes down to effluent treatment 水処理 or 水浄化.

And getting rid of the scum is :

除染
浄化
or again the generic  処理

The principle or concept used is that of co-precipitation or 共沈法 defined as :

「共沈法」と呼ばれる手法で、汚染水に特定の化学物質を入れて放射性物質を沈殿させた後、沈殿物だけ除去する方法。１時間で５０トンの汚染水を浄化する能力がある設備を取り付け、浄化後の水は汚染の程度が千～１万分の１になるという。

The company has "radioactive effluent treatment specialists" (a little French maybe "spécialistes du traitement des effluents radioactifs") who are probably 放射能汚染水処理専門家, but more probably  汚染水処理専門家 for the sake to forget the dreaded 放射能 also referred to and mixed with 放射線.

The competence is based on experience with soil decontamination, that is 土壌除染.

Such installation comes down to the category of RLETF, that is, Radioactive Liquid Effluent Treatment Facility. All this should facilitate the query of more technical information in the three languages with Wikipedia. I am looking for audio/video resources (technical presentations, conferences, etc.) to munch (read "shadow") on these subjects. If  any pointers, please write a comment.

Preemptive training for liaison interpreting

Is there such a thing as "Preemptive training" for liaison interpreting, and can you confidently advertise your "competences" - let's call it "readiness" - to serve? My first reaction was negative. You don't read "Swimming 101" and float as a consequence. Then I remembered those relations of war and interpretation, the US army wake of call following Pearl Harbour and the discovery that mostly no one in the US could speak Japanese, nor even listen and understand the radio broadcast from the ennemy. Which hammers down by the way the holy truth that interpreting starts with the capacity to listen. So there was massive preemptive training - was it in Colorado? - to churn out green army interpreters who would mostly learn or fail in-situ, discovering as it seems that their budding competence was mostly feminized Japanese as taught by their female Japanese teacher - on the war zones or at time safely remote with headphones on the skull. What is the level of preemptive training for a turp in Irak or Afghanistan? Practice makes perfect and there is not substitute to real life, but astronauts too train in pools. What are then the pools for preemptive training in liaison interpreting?

Surrounding the Fukushima drama, keeping focused on a selection of sources rather than thinning into the sea of news is a first requisite. I would like to add though a few additional drops in the pool of resources, first with Nature and the special section on the Tohoku catastrophe in Japanese, in English here, a short but valuable article in Narute News blog on the coming clean-up daunting task.

If you go to Amazon and start querying books with Fukushima in the title, you will see a growing collection of ebooks formatted NCR reports like this one I am reading right now. Besides the math, it is less daunting than you could expect, and gives very clear structural explanations that ease the understanding of news reports.

Some food for the ears too and I am looking for more of this following kind rather than news anchors' speech. I noticed the name of Jack Devine many times as a nuclear specialist and a deep experience with Three Mile Island clean-up. I kept a tab at a short interview of him relating the real stuff, dated March 30th from AM560 WIND in Chicago.

Now, if you are into liaison interpreting, what's your take on (solo) preemptive readiness?

Tell your needs in details to your trustful interpreter

Purposes, aims, ambitions, expectations, call it whatever you want. The point is that I always ask clients about their intentions, what they want to yield out of the coming meetings and visits, what they want to take home.

"We are a service provider in the domain of such and such. We need an interpreter tomorrow in Tokyo for a one hour discussion with our local partners." You may think the meeting's subject will be about such and such domain, so you quickly start focusing on such and such, get wet as fast and efficiently as you can to understand the big picture and more, and provide adequate services. Your client may have sent you some documents, or pointed at their web site, and that of the local partner. They may have added a few remarks like "We want to catch up after Mar. 11.". And that's it. You didn't ask, or they didn't tell you, but the agenda of the meeting has mostly nothing to do with the domain named "such and such". You discover right before the meeting that a much bigger issue is at stake, that the representative director, or agent, or "our man in Tokyo" actually left following Mar.11. They are here to mend the fences, to apology, to explain, to sooth the ire, the malaise, whatever. The subject has indeed nothing to do with "such and such" but with trust recovery, rapport and equilibrium reclaiming. They thought all interpreters are equal and communication is nothing but a matter of transporting words between two different dimensions. After all, isn't it the unique role of the interpreter? Wrong, absolutely wrong. Brief your interpreter on human and emotional issues at stake rather than let her discover what's wrong on the spot   

Bits of news and topics

The paper of the "Mediation at Work. Learning to Liaise in Business" that was held in 2009 in Trieste could be published at long last in the coming Summer.


How much interpretation assignments are generated by the - seemingly - massive deployment of crisis centers involving Hitachi, Toshiba and the likes with their US corporate partners specialized in BWR technology? I have no clue right now.


Read colleague Géraldine Oudin's post on her blog about "Impact of the 3/11 Japan Tsunami on the T&I Industry"


Get wet in condensed Fukushima news report choked full with in-situ vocabulary in Japanese by following the news in the Denki Shinbun. Here is an example of such almost daily diary. The Denki Shinbun is official, non-polemical stuff, but the jargon in there is what the specialist must probably use daily.


There are plenty of various good readings in and around Fukushima, from a tech, businessview point over the special site set up by TechOn. For a human view point, I especially liked the interview of a rescue squadron commandant about the fear and safety management when spreading water onto the badly bruised facility. The link might not work if you are not registered. Registration is free and of very good value.

Condolences and get-well expressions

Is forecasting themes to be tackled with meaningful with liaison interpreting, when someone tell you : "You will learn in-situ anyway"? Why would you invest time and money in, let's say, nuclear engineering, when no assignment  can be forecast in the very near future? Isn't reading the newspapers, watching TV, or for me listening to radio broadcast (a largely underdeveloped media in Japan) a better bet? Wouldn't it be smarter to focus on formal Japanese when so many unrelated events and announcements of many unrelated kinds start with an expression of sorrow. These may come more urgent to master than quantum physics. Here is one. 


このたびの東北地方太平洋沖地震により被災されましたすべての皆様に謹んでお見舞い申しあげます。


kono tabi no touhoku chihou taiheiyou oki jishin ni yori higai saremashita subete no minasama ni tsutsushinde omimai moushiagemasu.


Another one that takes into account in March 14 the crux of the survivors and the efforts of the rescuers.


このたびの東日本巨大地震で被害に遭われた皆様、またその御家族、御友人などに心よりお見舞い申し上げます。また今も救助を待たれている皆様の安全をお祈りしますとともに、救援、復旧に尽力されている皆様に敬意を表します。


kono tabi no higashi nihon kyodai jishin de hgai ni owareta minasama, mata sono gokazoku, goyuujin nado ni, kokoro yori omimai moshiagemasu. mata, ima mo kyuuen wo matareteiru mina sama no anzen wo oinori shimasu to tomo ni, kyuuen, fukkyuu ni, jinryoku sarete iru minasama ni kei-i wo arawashimasu.


With expression of condolences

東北地方太平洋沖地震　お悔やみとお見舞いを申し上げます。

この度、3月11日に宮城県三陸沖を震源とした東北地方太平洋沖地震におきまして、被害にあわれた皆様に心よりお見舞い申し上げるとともに、犠牲になられた方々とご遺族の皆様に対し、深くお悔やみを申し上げます。　

被災地におかれましては、一日も早い復旧と普段の生活に戻れますよう心よりお祈り申し上げます。

touhoku chihou taiheiyou oki jishin, okuyami to omimai wo moushiagemasu.

kono tabi, 3gatsu 11nichi ni miyagiken sanriku wo shingen to shita touhoku taiheiyou oki jishin ni okimashite, higai ni owareta minasama ni kokoro yori omimai moushiagemasu to tomo ni, gisei ni narareta katagata to go izoku no minasama ni taishite, fukaku okuyami moushiagemasu.

higaichi ni okaremashite wa, ichinichi mo hayai fukkyuu to fudan no seikatsu ni modoremasu you ni, kokoro yori oinori wo moushiagemasu.

There are enough examples scattered around of formal Japanese to edit a book and make you ashame of not mastering even half of it after all this time.

Mapping jobs

Here is a map of potential domains for possible assignments in liaison interpreting as a consequence of the 3.11 catastrophe. It has no exhaustive claim. I jolted down these links based on notes I took during a phone conversation today with someone in the knows and bits of readings in the newspaper. A similar map could be built up that would refer to the domains of knowledge to tackle with. Some are less than obvious, like "apology 101".

I made the document with the new WebinspirationPro, that is, the online version of concept map drawing long timer Inspiration I started using more than 20 years ago when there was no Internet, and idea mapping a strange foreign land. Inspiration was fascinating because it allowed to switch from graphical to text mode, a feat still rare in the crowded domain of online mapping solutions. As someone ill-equipped in "visual thinking" and a terrible drawer, you should believe me that the graphical mode even allows graphical mode blinds to draw maps and make discoveries out the drawings, for project conception to the next strategy to save the world.

That was the 1 minute nostalgic geek broadcast, and the free commercial is over.

Still time to visit Japan and show how you care

Why on earth would you invest in a trip even short to Japan when your business here has not been impacted by the Mar. 11 disaster? Check what you already did :

1. - I sent emails showing compassion to my business contacts in Japan.
2. - I sent exclusive support emails to the CEOs of the companies I have a deal with here, even though I only met them once.
3. - I requested and obtain time for a personal call to my key contacts in Japan to voice over my concern and how much I care.
4. - I committed to give to charities related with catastrophe.
5. - I decided and planned to tour Japan for even brief meetings with my partners as a show of care.

If traveling to Japan for business purpose is part of your usual job, chances are you already acted on point 5, or will do soon. It is still time but time has a limit.

If traveling to Japan has been a rare act because business as usual has been fine tuned and run remote, here is your chance to bond by coming and expressing your care direct. It will have a long term positive effect because :

- Japanese people are especially sensible to such "exceptional" gestures.
- Japan is still largely devoid of cynicism in the public sphere. Cynicism is a slap in the face and the face is still everything here. No criticism will come out of your showing up, empty handed (no gifts this time), but a show of compassion.
- Showing up is the strongest show of trust when you have nothing to mend.

Even if you are not a statesman, careful planning that does not interfere with your partners is essential. Trusting an agent to discuss the details of your meeting, even for 30 minutes over a cup of green tea, is a better move than  an exchange of email where you may miss the real state of minds of your partners. Leave it your interpreter but brief her on why you want to make her your proxy.

Trust recovery Management

Bowing and convincing are the two keywords in the problem still unnamed by Trust Recovery Management. You have BCP, BCM, DC that stands for Damage Control, but I have yet to see TRM. 


TRM has been a background issue from day one following the Tohoku catastrophe. Here I am pointing not at domestic TRM, an impossible issue for TEPCO and the current Prime Minister. I am instead pointing at international TRM. The buzzword is flyjin. This newly coined word will have a short half-life and many people don't know what it finger points at, but more many people have been talking about flyjin with a different vocabulary.


Flyjin derivates from gai-jin, a colloquial slightly or totally impolite way of talking about "people from the outside", that is, foreigners. Get rid of the "gai", outside, and replace with the English "fly" to refer to foreigners who flew Japan. Few don't care, even those, probably a majority, who feel compassionate about the flyjin, especially those who over panicked and are feeling the bruise and shame and symptoms of confusion and loss, even when coming back here.


But I would like to focus here on TRM and what it means for potential or effective missions where interpretation is required. TRM is not new, and it may be perceived that in the light of the current disaster in Japan, flyjin doesn't matter. It does, and it is never a matter of how deep or superficial trust has been lost or put into question. Take for instance an acute situation, that of Citibank and damage over bad conduct related with private banking services in Japan in 2005. The story from a point of view of damage control is described in this article. 


Sorry is the hardest word as the song tells. But here in Japan, it is the key act, and you don't have to be a managing director in an international bank to experience saying sorry. If you don't, recovery will never happen and the act of saying sorry and meaning it comes early in education.


Sorry doesn't mean "we are responsible". Issues of responsibility will come later on, but expressing sorry is the way to say "I understand your feelings and I am empathic with you on that matter." The standard joke among foreigners chuckling about having heard someone say sorry about the rain today is a show of how green they still are in understanding that the talker doesn't pretend she has any power to make rain. It is a show of empathy about the consequences of rain like gloom over gray sky and the inconveniences of humidity. 


As the article about Citibank rightly mentions in the case where there was no way to escape the fact that wrong was wrong, "Job No. 1 has been bowing and scraping to FSA officials and other Japanese regulators, trying to convince them the bank is contrite and determined to make amends."


and farther down the lane :


 "Getting through this hellish period will be made easier for Peterson by the fact that he appears to have convinced Japanese financial authorities of his sincerity."


I highlighted both bowing and sincerity for those are keys and acts that cannot be avoided. But some things must be avoided especially when you are not the culprit and are white and clean as the blue sky. Don't suggest that such things could never happen with you and your corporation. Don't boast of your superiority in words but in acts. 


If you are coming to Japan to mend the fence, assure your partners that business is as usual when everyone knows that minute details (yes, batteries and gasoline are back in Tokyo just like mineral water) , don't play it alone unless you know what sincerity and the show of it means. It doesn't exactly mean the same in Texas. Play it alone at your own risk, or hire the services of a supportive interpreter.