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.