Communications Gap
Of course the language is the starting point to solve communications gap. Two cases are shown as the examples.
Japanese Edition
Communication Gaps
Case 1: An English teacher of mine had liked Japan and tried to live in Wakayama with his wife but they returned home. Before leaving Wakayama, he said as follows;
One day he wanted to buy a bicycle and asked catalogues at a store. He could get the catalogues. But when he began to ask a question, a salesclerk swung his hands and refused to talk with him.
He also said that Japanese people did not want him other than an English teacher. He felt them as discrimination.I think the problem is his language. If he could speak Japanese more fluently, the other way would open. The clerk might be afraid of more complicated questions in halting Japanese or fluent English.
Because we live in a relatively homogeneous society for a long time, we have a custom which omits many explanations as common knowledge in daily conversation. Usually we like to talk in our dialect avoiding other dialects and even Standard Japanese language. So when we talk with other dialect speaking people or foreigners, sometimes we often have difficulty and stop speaking I think that changing this Japanese attitude is very difficult. If he wanted to have a job except the English teacher, his Japanese language skill would be more important factor.
Case 2: The other English teacher living for a long time in Wakayama with his family said that many foreigners disliked being called 'gaijin' though he did not care about it. I remember that other teachers said, "I was called 'gaijin'”, and that some teachers said, "It is discrimination against me." I never thought that "gaijin" gave them a feeling of discrimination. As I wrote in the account of my trip to Switzerland, I heard Japanese group tourists were called "Japaner (Japanese)!" It was not so comfortable but I didn't feel it discrimination. I only thought "I am a 'gaijin' called 'Japaner' in this country."
Of course we should not use this word if they dislike it. I suppose the real problem is not the meaning of the word but the sense of distinguishing between foreigners and Japanese. But I would like to explain the meaning of ‘gaijin’. It was abbreviated from "gai-koku-jin", which means a foreigner. More precisely, "gai" is a prefix which means "out side of ..."; "koku" means a country or nation; "jin" means a person or people. We have many similar words as follows:
gaiden overseas report gaisai foreign loan gaika foreign money gaishi foreign capital gaimai* imported rice gaishin foreign news *an exception gaimu foreign affairs gairai imported gaiyuu overseas trip gaisha foreign car I am afraid that comparing the human with the car is not suitable but there are interesting changes about "gaisha." When foreign cars had been the majority and Japanese cars minority, we used to call all cars as "ji-do-sha", or automobiles. If it was necessary to differentiate Japanese cars from foreign cars, we call Japanese cars as "koku-san-sha," or Japanese-made cars. Japanese-made cars increased in 1960s and we began to call foreign cars by "gaisha" in order to differentiate from many Japanese cars.
Now most of us call cars with each manufacturer's name or each brand name. I suppose that the increase of the familiar feeling of gaisha changed their names. Maybe the familiar feeling is supported by the following factors:
- Popularization of foreign cars. Foreign cars have increased again with the strong yen and the elimination of tariff barriers.
- The position of steering wheel. The steering wheel has been changed from the left to the right in order to adjust to Japanese traffic rules.
I think that the friendly feeling about foreigners is most important factor too. Maybe the foreigners living in Japan are not many enough but we cannot increase them easily. To feel to be friendly, we need conversation between a "gaijin" and a "Japanese." So your Japanese language skill is important. If you could not speak Japanese, most of Japanese, who are not interested in foreign languages, would not want to be friendly with you. Under such circumstances, I think that you should repeat introduction of your name in Roma-ji or Katakana. Once your name is memorized, you will not be called "gaijin." You can see we do not call President Bush or Herbert von Karajan as "gaijin." I think you should be satisfied with the relation between a 'gaijin' and Japanese when the Japanese is a passer-by.
Uploaded June
11, 2001
Revised December 10, 2001
Revised July 16, 2005