Language. NO I DONT SPEAK ENGLISH. I AM FRENCH!

[Taro Toporific]

I think it was a revelation to them how we equate the term gaijin and gaikokujin with an unwanted outsider, foreigner - and how once they learn our names it's just common decency to use them.

Is there another Japanese word for "foreigner" or are you hoping to force a new word into their language?

No not at all, but if you know my name please use it.

Andy-san? No, I would not be that insulting, although MANY Japanese try to pull that shit on foreigners. (Subtle J-insult is to call their FG wage-slave by their first name + san.)

[kamome]

Andy-san? No, I would not be that insulting, although MANY Japanese try to pull that shit on foreigners. (Subtle J-insult is to call their FG wage-slave by their first name + san.)

Is this really an insult? I have always heard first name + san used as a friendly term of endearment.

[Andocrates]

My real name isn't Andocrates (well really it is I got the long white beard and the staff) no my name is Mike so that's easy for Japanese to say.

(These are observations, not the gospel)

Many friends call me Mike San, but my closet friends just say Mike. I am a real good discerner of people's intent, it's sort of a gift. I hardly ever get fooled, so I'm painfully aware when a backhanded comment is aimed at me. Yes, I do get insulted from time to time. But that's anywhere you live. The one most painful backhanded comment aimed at me was from a Brit. It cut me to the bone and I didn't deserve it but she just used me as a joke for her friend.

There is a lot of insecurity among some Japanese males around Americans. We're loud, opinionated, big, and generally pretty sharp. but they have us outnumbered so they gang up. Not because we are bad but because they are insecure. It's like High School all over again.

This is the part where I say "But if you treat them like individuals, blah blah blah." except that doesn't work because you can't ever break into their group, so the cycle repeats endlessly.

[Steve Bildermann]

[cstaylor]

Yet it may be *years* before they even know what the Japanese bosses first name *is* let alone have the temerity to use it.

It's a rare day that any OL uses the bosses name (first or last)... from my experience it is always by title.

[kamome]

[Steve Bildermann]

[GomiGirl]

Well as a fuku-shacho I get called by my first name - but I insist on that. The shachou (also a FG) is called Shacho by everybody except me.. We have an American guy who is the youngest of all and he is called by his first name + kun.

I haven't noticed any backhanded insults but then I am not looking for them. As long as they do what is required I am pretty happy.

[NeoNecroNomiCron]

At work I call all my seniors by their first name. I was told to by them. Even some said i can call them my their nick name. Almost everybody I talk to here has a nick name usualy they got at school or university.

If japanese want to call my same with a suffix i ask them to call me -jan.
As i dont care for any titles at all in europe or anywhere.

I in the few months of being here I also have a nick name Tako-jan which is pretty cool. Lit. pet octopus But it can be cryptic for small devil.

[kamome]

[tidbits]

Has anyone work with a a very tradiotional thinking Japanese boss?

staff: Ohayougozaimasu,Kacho/ Bucho/XX-San

The Boss: hai.(without even looking at you, and needless to say the smile)

half of the days, the boss will just ignore your greetings, I really mean IGNORE.

My Japanese colleagues told me is normal for the boss to just answer "Hai" to the greetings.

[Taro Toporific]

[cstaylor]

Oh, they get very verbal when something isn't going right.

[tidbits]

Excactly! in fact "hn" is the reply, not "hai'

Quick temper boss. Almost everyday someone will get scolded. A few staffs were being shouted "GO HOME!"#$%&*`..(don't know how to traslate the rest) Scarry..

[Kurofune]

For better or worse this is probably just a product of Japan's recent history- from Commodore Perry to MacArthur, Japan has had an unusually close relationship with the United States. Therefore all white people speak English. Well, they do in the Hollywood movies, don't they?

In Tokyo, I don't hear many people assume that all foreigners are American. Conversations usually start with some form of "where are you from?" On the other hand, Japanese acquaintances have often assumed that I knew every little detail about all the other foreign countries. I've also gotten, "An Australian guy at my office did [...]. Why did he do that?"

I still get a lot of the "all foreigners speak English" attitude, and Japanese seem to get offended when I suggest that non-English speaking foreigners might not like that. They seem to feel justified in having this stereotype. I had a similar situation when my class tried to argue their point with me after I told them that they shouldn't consider all Italian men to be skirt chasers. When they insisted that personal experience with individual Italian men wasn't so important, I shut down the conversation with, "Well, I guess I don't have to wonder what you think about me."

You must learn to think left to right. I often bug Japanese to speak Japanese to me, what they do is bury me in complex Japanese - works well on me - I give up real easy and walk off all dejected.

I've gotten out of a few conversations that way. I casually threw out a few comments like I was chatting with some guy in a bar back home, and that was the end of that. People who can handle that kind of English don't have to leech practice from foreigners.

I'm glad the point about subtle insults came up, because I've been wondering about some of the things I hear. In particular, I've wondered if people who meet you for the time and chuckle out "please teach me English" like it's a silly little joke are actually saying that that's all you're worth to them.

For fuck sake its just a language!

Yeah, it's the same crap as "can you eat Japanese food," followed by the "OOH!" when you say yes. It's like: "Tanaka-san, can you eat a hamburger? OOH! What did you think when you were eating it?" Unfortunately, the analogy is lost on some people. As the authors of The Xenophobe's Guide to the Japanese write: "The nation is convinced that, though foreigners will never know them, if they suffer long enough, they will know the foreigners" (7).

[japslapper]

[maraboutslim]

As I tried to say several pages ago in this thread, there must be something about the way you guys act or something wrong with your Japanese that makes people want to speak English to you. Get your body language down, and speak Japanese like a native (not like a textbook), and no one will speak English to you. And by "speak like a native", I don't mean fluent: I just mean use the appropriate spatter of "ano" and"eeeeeh tohhh" and that stuff and stop making complete gramatically correct sentences, too.

I lived in Yokohama and Tokyo for six years. I hung out with the Captain sometimes, but nearly all my time was spent in situations where I was the only gaijin around. I was in a band that played in all the live houses around Tokyo: fans and other band members did not come up to me and speak English. I even went to gaijin style pubs and picked up chicks there and got away without giving free english lessons. I surfed beaches from Chiba to Izu and didn't encounter any "leaches" there either. And so on and so forth.

Me thinks people to whom the Japanese try to speak English either look like suckers or look like they are fresh off the boat foreigners in need of help.

-Slim

[cstaylor]

It's a mix... I'm in Yokohama, and for the most part I don't get any leeches... but sometimes when I'm out fishing in the boonies, I'll get the once in a while "hey, where you from?" in broken English. I answer in Japanese... I'm not a teacher, so I'm not worn out speaking English all day, so I don't mind the occasional person trying to test their abilities.

For the most part, they seem happier when I answer in Japanese... maybe they get an immediate sense of "Wow, he understood what I said!" or something.

I really feel for the language teachers though... must be rough putting in 8-10 hours of instruction, only to be hounded by people looking for freebies.

[japslapper]

[quote=""
Me thinks people to whom the Japanese try to speak English either look like suckers or look like they are fresh off the boat foreigners in need of help.

-Slim[/quote"]

Some of us gaijin look very gaijin. I am a very blond - Eric the viking type - I have been here about 3yrs now - speak Japaness well - other gaijin with darker complexions - I have noticed get bothered less.

But maybe your right - in "real" Inaka here I know the area - and am settled - and dont get bothered. I tend to get bothered in the big cities when I am certainly off guard - I have spent less than 6weeks in urban areas - maybe it shows.

All the same I think a campaign is necessary and further education of the populace here. (just look at the athletics on TV tonight - interviers in good Jp-english interviewing Bulgarians who respond in decidely uncomprehensable english - why cant they try Russian? - the bulgarian will speak it -but of course gaijin = english, right? . Even the home of "real" english broadcasting - The BBC - manages to be culturally sensitive!

[maraboutslim]

Even the home of "real" english broadcasting - The BBC - manages to be culturally sensitive!

Except to the Irish!

Good post though - makes sense. I think, for better or worse, one needs to remember that English is kind of the default business language for most of the developed world. France may still insist that French be used with English at the Olympics for example, and the rest of the world humors them for some reason (i guess because they think maybe all those african countries still speak french). But when in the "1st world", I don't think the Japanese are totally crazy for assuming that world travelling foreigners probably speak English at least as well as the Japanese person does. I believe most European countries require it to be studied in school and most students are more successful in picking it up than the average Japanese student.

-Slim

[AssKissinger]

I agree with Slim. I've been to lot of countries around the world and I've found that for basic survival English is all you need. When I run into another gaijin I always assume they speak some English and 99.9% of the time I'm right. I did live in a dormitory with a lot of Brazilian workers and with some of them their English was so poor we had to use Japanese but that's pretty rare. I equate the ability to speak English with basic literacy. In the same way that any educated person shold be able to read or do at least algebra I expect an educated person anywhere in the world to have at least some basic English skills. To pretend you can't speak English is obviously bullshit. Plus, if the guy does believe you're French if he knows anything about the inernational world he'll think you're one dumb ass Frog (the new f-word?) if you can't speak as much English as the typical dipshit Japanese.

In Vietnam my cyclo driver took me all over Saigon. He actually slept in front of the hotel I was staying at to catch me on the morning. He was fluent in English.

Bangladesh, I'm walking around some village this 9 year old kid runs up to me speaking English. He showed me around town all day getting me to buy crap I didn't need.

And so on...Hell, you ever watch those 'strongest man in the world' shows where these big muscle heads toss full kegs over walls and pull mack trucks up hills? They'll interview these strong men from Scandinavia and their English is better than the typical American. So the assumption that some gaijin walking around Tokyo speaks English is really fair enough. If you don't want to talk to a leech just don't. How hard is that? Tell him to 'fuck off' they all know that from the movies.

[maraboutslim]

There were two cases in which I was unable to use English. One was with a cab driver in Taipei. He didn't understand at all and didn't know Japanese either. I had to resort to writing my destination on a piece of paper. Luckily I remembered the kanji for "train station" in chinese (not the same as "eki" in japanese but rememberable enough for me). Because, though he understood "taipei" he had no idea where in taipei i wanted to go because he didn't understand the "station" part. The paper worked.

And I know a Brazillian in Japan who publishes a surfing magazine. He speaks some English but obviously better Japanese. We spoke a mix to each other. But when with his Brazillian surfer friends who didn't speak any English, we used Japanese as it was our common language. We always had the feeling the Japanese were looking at us wondering why all those gaijin at the next table were speaking Japanese...

In Korea I just used Japanese with the old couple who owned the inn I was staying at. I tried English first and it was working (the other guests were from all over the world) but as soon as they saw me write my address in Japan on the registration card, they switched to Japanese. They seemed happier to speak Japanese than English, which I always thought was odd since surely the only reason they knew Japanese was that they were forced to learn it during the occupation. I guess not all the memories of those days were bad ones. Then some crazy Japanese sisters there got me sick on some discusting korean rice wine - but that's another story... Outside the inn I spoke to hardly no one the whole time I was in Korea. I didn't feel like being the ugly tourist who tries to make people speak English to me and I knew only travel guide Korean. At least in Taipei I could read the signs and know what was what - in Korea I was totally out of it.


-Slim

[Andocrates]

I have by no means arrived, but I have found out it's easier to just go with the flow and enjoy whatever happens. You do that for you, not them. I am a type-a personality so it just makes my life easier. I make it a point to always learn at least one thing from every conversation, sometimes learning one thing is better because you remember those tiny lessons.

So why fight it? Try for a week just going along with the flow and maybe it won't be so bad.

[japslapper]

I believe most European countries require it to be studied in school and most students are more successful in picking it up than the average Japanese student.


.....usually yes - except in France where its given equal status with German etc. Having said that - in my 6months stay on the rural outskirts of Rome a few years back - I didnt once have a conversation with a local in English - my dodgy Italian was enough. The leech syndrome - I never met it.

Usually in my travels in Europe - If I need to ask someone for something I use trial and error to find a lanuage that works -English,French,Italian,Spanish - I have used all asking for directions in Poland and Germany!

To pretend you can't speak English is obviously bullshit. Plus, if the guy does believe you're French if he knows anything about the inernational world he'll think you're one dumb ass Frog (the new f-word?) if you can't speak as much English as the typical dipshit Japanese.

...but many people can use some English but are not comfortable using it. Me the pseudo "Frog" I was trying to say my Japanese is better than my English. A vast majority of even educated non English speaking FGs who had been here a year of two would be the same - I think. And that Prof - was clearly - not that knowledgable (text book stuff only)

In my Native Wales(UK) - I have a lot of young friends(even a medical student friend) and relatives who are not comfortable using English - even when they are 4hrs from London! Luckily in Wales you can take exams etc in either language.
I grew up bilingual with English and Welsh - in some Welsh schools you can get punished for speaking English! (used to be the other way round - hence old English for foreigner is "welshi" )

In rural North Wales we often get Londoners walking around as if they rule the place - they walk into a pub with their swagger and you can feel the atmosphere change - the barman speeks 100% Welsh - the local customers all speak 100% welsh. If the Londoner had just bothered to learn a few greetings (Bore da =good day) - no problem. Basically - by showing cultural sensitivity you can build bridges -

Fellow FGs if you go to rural Wales or Gaelic Ireland - and speak a few words of the local lingo in a rural pub - you will be applauded and the locals will probably buy you beer or two!

Anyway - I understand in Japan there is a lot of deep cultural fear of "gaijin" - surely its best to encourage gaijin to learn Japanese langauge and culture - make it easy.

When ever I travel to a place and intended to stay more than a few weeks I ALWAYS try and learn the language - sure English is a back up - but I think a culture and a language are interlinked. Even Brits and Americans - the English (use of - usally) is a little different as is the culture. And if I couldnt manage I would try and ellicit help from someone who spoke a language I knew

I will continue to play the devils advocate with leeches. I am always out to practice my Japanese - I will just turn the situation around for myself.

Actually I am sure the leech factor is really a symptom of Japans general "International Interface Malaise" - Appreciating and acknowledging variation in the world as well as having an honest appreciation and understanding of ones own culture and history is deffinately lacking in old Nippon.

[Naniwan Kid]

Has anyone work with a a very tradiotional thinking Japanese boss?

staff: Ohayougozaimasu,Kacho/ Bucho/XX-San


boss: hai (or no response) {sorry I edited}

My first job in Japan as a JET I had this experience. I said good morning to him every day, and in three years I don't think he ever looked me in the eye once (I was also almost a foot taller than him, and I am not that tall)

As I tried to say several pages ago in this thread, there must be something about the way you guys act or something wrong with your Japanese that makes people want to speak English to you. Get your body language down, and speak Japanese like a native (not like a textbook), and no one will speak English to you. And by "speak like a native", I don't mean fluent: I just mean use the appropriate spatter of "ano" and"eeeeeh tohhh" and that stuff and stop making complete gramatically correct sentences, too.

Slim, you are so right. I don't know what I do to avoid leeches, but I haven't experienced on in years. I find wearing sunglasses all the time helps (especially to hid my hung over eyes), but I speak Japanese well, and people just tend to RESPOND to me in Japanese when asked without all the "well" "how do you say"....stuff. I even read English papers on the train, but no one messes with me....

They'll interview these strong men from Scandinavia and their English is better than the typical American.

Keep in mind, Asskissinger, that there are MANY kinds of English, just as there are many kinds of Japanese.

[kamome]

I get annoyed by being approached for freebies, or more often, the "let's practice our English on the gaijin customer" types in a store/at a yatai/etc. But my response is to ignore their crappy English and respond only in Japanese as if I'm not hearing their English. Eventually the light bulb goes on and they switch to Japanese (or the light bulb goes on right as I'm leaving the store).

[Snapped]

In the same way that any educated person shold be able to read or do at least algebra I expect an educated person anywhere in the world to have at least some basic English skills. To pretend you can't speak English is obviously bullshit.

I don't think it's fair to expect any educated person anywhere in the world to be able to have basic English skills. I spent some time with a family in Romania a few years ago. Both the mother and father in the family were educated people but they couldn't speak English. Why was that? Because the two languages they had to learn at school were French and Russian. Until they met me, they probably didn't need English. Even then, they didn't need English because we communicated in French.

Similarly, English hasn't always been the main foreign language taught in Italy. A number of years ago it was French. I taught English to a good number of people there who had never learnt it at school.

[ramchop]

Similarly, English hasn't always been the main foreign language taught in Italy. A number of years ago it was French. I taught English to a good number of people there who had never learnt it at school.

Yes, but that's all changing. eg. In Vietnam, French was once the foreign language taught in schools, then it was Russian, now it's English.

English is the international language and it'll get easier and easier for us monolingual plebs to get through life using just English. Which I feel is really sad. The problem with languages is you have to want to learn them. I studied Latin, French, and Japanese in school and remember almost nothing... so forcing kids to learn it is a wasted effort. But I'm learning a couple of languages now because I want to, and picking them up so much quicker.

I've yet to experience a Japanse language leech. But those I've encountered in other countries have been very friendly and by no means a waste of my time.

[Snapped]

Yes, but that's all changing. eg. In Vietnam, French was once the foreign language taught in schools, then it was Russian, now it's English.

English is the international language and it'll get easier and easier for us monolingual plebs to get through life using just English.

Yes, it is changing, but we're still not quite at the stage where we can all get through life just using English.

The problem with languages is you have to want to learn them. I studied Latin, French, and Japanese in school and remember almost nothing... so forcing kids to learn it is a wasted effort.

It's true that you have to actully want to learn a language in order for you to be able to learn it. Unfortunately, it's far better for most people to start learning a new language when they are still children. That's means forcing kids to learn it at school. Perhaps schools should be thinking carefully how they can teach languages in a way that kids will actually want to learn them.

[Behan]

Just resurrecting an old thread to have a whinge about language leeches and bandits.

I seem to be surrounded by them and I am afraid I will go postal. Where can I get a gun in Japan? Just kidding.

A young teacher who sits near me will only speak to me in English. And she's not the only one, just the one who pisses me off the most.

I know this is a petty, undeserving of pity, whinge, but anyone else care to share their experiences or strategies for stopping it?

PMS Behan