I was talking with my friend Fred the other day about where language and culture meet. Fred was reminiscing about his days teaching English conversation when the English conversation boom had just started to move from major metropolitan areas to medium size cities. Now, almost any Japanese city with over 25,000 people is bound to have at least one conversation school. In those days though, there were cities with hundreds of thousands of people that only had a few schools with native English speaking teachers.

Time and time again, Fred met people who told him that he was the first Westerner they had ever spoken with. Fred's strongest memory was of a Honda man. Fred couldn't remember if the man was a student, someone he met on a train, or someone from a bar. Fred thought the conversation was in English, so it may have been in a class, but he wasn't sure. Almost a quarter of a century later though, Fred still remembered the content, or lack thereof, of the conversation.

Fred's conversations, due to his limited Japanese at the time, or his student's limited English, pretty much all started out the same way. Fred would say his name and find out where the other person was from. After that was where Fred was from, California, and where the person he was talking with was from. Communication usually went pretty smoothly until there. After was the first challenge: employment. Fred would say he was a teacher, which was not a linguistic challenge for him or the listener in Japanese or English, but then communication became more difficult for both cultural and linguistic reasons.

This is the conversation Fred remembered:

Fred: My name is Fred. What's your name?

Akira: My name is Akira. (Fred actually couldn't recall, so I used Akira here.)

Fred: I am from California. Where are you from?

Akira: I am from Tokyo.

Fred: I am a teacher. What do you do?

Akira: I am a Honda man.

Fred: I am a teacher. I teach. What do you do?

Akira: I am a Honda man.

Fred: What do you do at Honda?

Akira: I am a Honda man.

Fred: Are you an engineer? Are you in sales? What do you do?

Akira: I am a Honda man.

Fred: I teach. I teach English. I teach students. (Fred was having a little trouble here.) What do you do?

Akira: I am a Honda man.

Fred: At Honda, do you make cars? Do you sell cars? Do you work in an office? Do you work in a factory? What do you do? (Understanding that janitor was probably too difficult a word, Fred wanted to ask if he was a cleaning man or the president. He didn't to be polite though.)

Akira: I am a Honda man.

Fred thinks the conversation was actually a bit longer, but similar. Fred was not positive if the man avoided saying that he was a janitor or a night watchman, preferring instead to be a Honda man, was unable to explain in English, thought the question was an invasion of privacy, or never understood the difference between belonging to an organization and the job that you actually do.

Now, Fred understands how strongly many Japanese identify with their organizations, much more than with what they do. When Fred talked with the man though, Fred wondered if the man was a little slow or had a really bad job at Honda. After all, the reason for his not answering could have been different. Fred knows not to confuse language ability and intelligence, but given that the man had probably had at least six years of English as almost all Japanese junior high and high school graduates have, he should have been able to say something. Fred doubted that Honda was hiring people who had not at least graduated from high school.

I agreed with Fred. The man's job was probably not a great job and he probably didn't want to talk about it. He probably just wanted to be a Honda man.