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.