Arguing and interpretation

It starts off-topic, but it's main topic all the way through so stand by me.

It starts with the reading of yet another tepid article in the tepid Japan Times. One guy wants Japanese schools to teach kids empathy. What else, English, debating competence, Powerpoint slideshow editing, thinking by oneself, daring having opposing views? When do you expect math to be taught now that empathy gets into the curriculum? And who will teach these things? And why not teach kids on the other side - because there are two side you know, us and we - not to carry lethal weapons at school? Anyway. Again, it's the Japan Times state of mind, and it's not a song about New York.

Then serendipity comes in. I jump to this article in the (giggle) Education section : Mastering the gentle art of arguing in Japanese. Good title, but who is the Master? The best part of the article turns to be the raising of the very subject. But I quit when it starts veering into the "how-to" chapter with pieces of words and expressions you must "master".

I can't refrain though and click on the link to jump onto Michael Gakuran web site. The original article is more meaty and worth a re-read. The large collection of comments are worth perusing to. Common are matters of communication and the frustrations of it from a  Westerners point of view living in Japan will be familiar to some.

The most interesting part of the story is again that anyone would raise as clearly the issue of argumentation (between Western and Japanese side, manicheistically speaking), with the standard Western complaint of "I can't have satisfactory debates with Japanese", "I have no friends (not in the Facebook sense) to talk to who is Japanese", and the rest of the litany.

Michael Gakuran is part of the next generation of Westerners to fill the pages of tepid Japan Times and equivalent. Japan needs tepid lenient Westerners they are not afraid of. Nothing new with that. What is rather new is that the next generation will deliver even better than the previous, because it was soaked into Japanmania right out of the womb. No jealousy involved. It's the plain truth and a matter of fact.They feel good here, or at least have the knack to pretend they do even before turning into a Gaijin Talento.

Gakuran's style matches tepidness and it makes sense when you want to write in the Japan Times. He writes the way pages want to be filled here. Still into JET program, it shows how committed and directive and strategic one can turn even under leniency and very few years spent in the country. These are premature experts at fitting in the local marketing pool.

Way much more interesting is what is being implied, and I want you to watch what is announced as a humorous video by the end of the article, showing the differences in argumentation styles. Behind the caricature, especially the so-called messy Western way of arguing versus the restrained and brilliant imitation of a Japanese exchange of opposite opinions, there is an essential story to take back home.

These guys are truly brilliant and tell a story Gakuran cannot catch - I don't think he skips this on purpose of additional strategic tepidness - that the correct question is not : How to Argue in Japanese, awkward title that one day will turn into a classic book for Westerners in Japan. No, the correct question should be instead : Why argue with Japanese? And the brilliant guys in the video implicitly spill out the core issue at stakes ...

... and that's where we come back to The Liaison Interpreter' blog main topic .....
(wheeww!) ....

What do you want to achieve by arguing?

The answers are provided in some of the comments that show the author is still behind his readers. One states the following :

My feeling about debating with Japanese people is, "don't". They aren't taught critical thinking in school and are discouraged from engaging in opinion-based arguments. They're at a disadvantage because their cultural priorities are different. They're supposed to consider not only the other person's viewpoint, but also their relative status. If you're a guest or a teacher or a person of higher rank in your company, they are unlikely to disagree with you overtly anyway. It's not a level playing field, and it feels like taking advantage for some sort of person ego gratification to try and debate with Japanese folks. So, I simply don't. There are plenty of foreigners to have such discussions with, and we're all operating on from the same cultural perspective and were educated to have such arguments.

Then, how to avoid arguing and rather focus on what you want to achieve?
The answer to this pops up in another brilliant comment.

I've had plenty of discussions and generally explore topics carefully with them (almost daily, actually). Mainly, I make sure not to try and score points for my "side" (which I see as debating) or trying to prove that I have a better point or more supported perspective. What I tend to do is ask questions to spiral outward from what a Japanese person expresses until they reach a conclusion. That conclusion is the point I want to make, but they get there thinking its their realization, not my viewpoint. I don't usually assert anything about what I think or feel actively, but just try to lead people along a line of discussion that will help them be open to other ideas. In the end, they "agree" with me because they've not been challenged or even asked to agree. They've just been lead to "understand". It's absolutely non-confrontational and is more about educating than debating.

So, discussion, yes. :-) Debate, no. ;-)

In business liaison interpreting with Japanese as interlocutors, when the setting is somewhat controversial, playing the mantra of neutrality and just transferring what your client says is usually a guarantee for failure. And as experience shows, you probably simply cannot refrain that urge to bend the blunt angles of your client when you know that this won't do. It is the very reason why I ask my clients : "What do you want to achieve by the end of the session?" Because as an helper, chances I may slightly bend the speech for their benefit, helping them getting closer to achieve what they want to take away.

As for the issue of satisfactory discussions with Japanese, I have found a clue recently in a book that has apparently no relationship with Japan it totally ignores. It is a book (in French) about politeness, savoir-vivre and social relations.

One unknown writer would suggest to teach empathy at Japanese school. I would suggest to learners of the Japanese language, and those punitively uneasy with themselves in front of the lack of satisfactory discussions with Japanese people two thing : learn keigo (honorific language) - there are plenty of books for that, and learn why you need keigo. There are no books I am aware of that are asking and answering the "why" question. Interestingly enough, you will get hints why keigo and the behaviors that come with it by reading a book on savoir-vivre. It won't sooth the pain in one day, but it may help reset the mind toward more strategic things to enjoy life here.

Half-native Mikitani speaks out

There is more comment on today's weather forecast than analysis of the meaning of what people in the news say. You tend to get used to the daily half-anesthetic state of no thinking beside the basics of what's coming next in the two hours.

I can't get rid of the anglicization stuff. It is not a bad idea, but where does it start to prove awkward, on the verge of stupidity. I found part of the answer in an interview of Rakuten CEO Mikitani over Toyo Keizai Online.

Somewhere in the course of the interview, Mr. Mikitani speaks of himself of being "half-native". That's when I would have called the shrink. Is the intention to have all the staff (or only the top brass as you can't, as usual, make a sense of all the vague and contradictory reports of the press) turn "a quarter", "a half" or "fully" native?

But what is "native"? I for one will never be native of any of my foreign languages I use for getting money, paying the rent or more. So is it a matter of being "fluent", with all the previous categories, "half", "quarter", fully "quarter and a half"?

There is a majority of the world who do not give a dime about your fluency. On the beach of Coppacabana or the Cote-d'Azur, I assume that ice-cream vendors can fix a deal with whatever nationalities around, flipping with gelato, glace, icecream, the Chinese or Breton equivalent, granted Bretons are a large enough population to learn, hello, thank you, good bye, strawberry, have a nice day and the likes.

As Donald Richie wrote somewhere in his journal, and I try and remember the gist of it, a farmer's wife in poor Sicilia will bog you with 3 English broken words in order to entice you to buy her goat cheeses.

In the previously mentioned interview, the journalist asks :

　——日本人同士で英語を話すと、効率が落ちるのではないかという声もありますが、そうした問題は乗り越えられますか。

There are voices criticizing the need for Japanese staff to have to speak English even among themselves as this may impact efficiency. Can this hurdle be overcome?

　簡単に乗り越えられる。1年後にはまったく問題ないでしょう。

Yes, easily. There won't be any issue left after a year.

I wonder if the journalist asked the basic, priority question : why should Japanese among themselves speak English? Back in the Golden Year of having spent 12 months at Nagoya university with a Japanese government stipend, and a regimen of 6 to 8 hours of intensive courses of Japanese daily that made the verb "progress" a tangible thing, the various nationalities in the classroom quickly settled down to use Japanese among ourselves. In a sense, we rehearsed Japanese during the breaks, we breathed Japanese all the time, except when talking among peers of same native language. It felt awkward, but the feeling very quickly disappeared. Japanese was the lingua franca to overcome the various level of comfort, or the lack of it at English, the international language.

What would be the purpose to have all your staff sharing a common native language to speak another one? Would it be a way to break procrastination at not being even "half-native"? A rule and a mean of continuous training? I am at loss with this although I do understand there might an impact granted many traits of being Japanese be overcome first, that are beyond issues of language, and way much more into matters of hierarchy, shame management, etc.

Mr. Mikitani, and Fast Retailing CEO Mr. Yanai share the same concern they probably discuss in Japanese among themselves, that "Galapagosization" of Japan, the result of the "we-are-unique" mantra deep down ingrained in the fabric, is now feeling acutely dangerous. They have a point. Globalisation is about language as a dynamic activity, the patterns of which are massively of Western marketing orientation. In that sense, wabi-sabi on the world scene at least is meaningless. There's a culture clash here where language is a vehicle, but not the main factor.

You know how the feeling of urgency works here, as in other part of the world. It may go down the gutter until it's too late to adapt, not to catch up.

I see the point of this fear, and English is for sure bound for a renewed excess of craze. The day you see travelers in the subway silently mumbling at silence shadowing with ears plugged, and eyes conveniently focused on the mobile tiny screen, you'll say something is brewing.

There is another startling utterance in Mr. Mitani stance :

日本人が英語をしゃべれるようになれば、海外の人も日本で働きやすくなる。日本人を使うとコストが高いし、労働力が足りなくなるのだから、海外から来てもらうしかない。

When Japanese will be able to speak Japanese, Japan will turn more convenient for foreigner to work in. Employing Japanese is expensive and the workforce is turning scarce so much that there will be no solution but to have them come to Japan from abroad.

So basically, we want foreign workers to come and get paid less than Japanese.

The standard counter argument to my interpretation could be :

- Global refutation : your wrongly interpreted my words (= I didn't mean what I said).

- The local refutation:

1- You don't understand the subtleties of Japanese.
2- This interview was not supposed to leak out of Japan (rare these days).

It is great, great time to go back to the main subject of this blog. Sorry for the readers. And if you teach English, you know where in Tokyo to run to. Nova, come back.

Japan Corporate anglicization

Almost off-topic : Anglicization is in. And it is the "~zation" ending that matters most. In 12 years time (The Republic of?) Rakuten will have moved from Japanese as internal lingo to English. It's official, they are going English, like Nissan, like Fast Retailing.

12 years. Maybe a boon for the battered English industry. Cram schools with "English for toddlers" are crying out of pure joy. Mothers are ever more worried. What else could they do? Society, that is marketing, have been busy formatting them that way.

A threat for interpreters? Maybe.

12 years, that's the duration of compulsory education plus 3 years. That's the number of tribes in ancient Israel.

In a show of commitment, Rakuten CEO delivered the announcement in English, and answered in English to journalists' questions in English, and in Japanese to the others.

No Chinese?

How many foreign journalists were called as props to the announcement?

It's hard not to chuckle, to call it a failure before it starts. In the boardrooms of Japan Inc. the average must be 70 years old and the matter of English as tangible as reaching for the moon.

Where else does this happen? This is important. Here as everywhere else, you can't count on the press to tell the people where else in the world forced corporate anglicization is taking place. Probably Korea, but who cares about Korea, or mentioning Korea, especially if examples in Korea were showing that Japan, a tiny part of it, is just but following Korea in the trail of forced march toward English?

What about forced march toward meaningful, articulated argumentation? Who will teach anyway?

How to get blond with blue eyes? Will they hire Indian teacher? No, Indian is for math only.

Berlitz' ad campaign focused on business English since last year may have come in anticipation. Monitoring the English manual being churned out in more than ever detailed slicing of "real corporate life English" will keep me busier, on the lookout for something that may be turned into material for teaching interpretation. Coming next is probably "English in the boardroom - What every board member should know in order not to loose face in front of others".

Repeat 10 times : "we-Japanese-culture is uniquely unique".

The vortex of English crash and desperate learning is also a blow to other languages being taught here. What's the fuss with minor languages like .... Spanish?

Will the impact reach the delicious trail of books seen over these recent years on "How to think logically?". "How to think log...", "How to think". The boys and girls coming back from holy English speaking countries (is a plural needed?) like ... America ... will be loved-and-hated more or less from now on. As M. said the other day, "not only am I asked if I speak English, but also if I speak Japanese". Both of which she excels in.

This obsession with language you tend to acquire living here over the years, less the language, more the obsession. If not it, we would have even less things to speak about.

This blog will cease mumbling for the coming 12 years and come back in Italian.

Expect more blue eyes blond cashiers at convenience store to practice :

- Clerck : 256 yens
- Customer : ......
- Clerck : do you want a bag?
- Customer : yes, yes! (alternate, no, no!)
- Clerck : "Thank you very much and we hope to see you again soon on board of our shops open 24/24 always here to serve you a smile (and a salary with no future)".
- Customer : ....

Over.