More language barriers

An International City

When my husband was flying the Navy P-3, he was deployed to Misawa Japan for six months. We decided that my daughter and I would join him for two months of the deployment. He left in June, and in July I was on the phone with the travel agent making my plans to go to Japan.

Since there was no direct flight from the U.S. to Misawa, the travel agent convinced me that my best option was to fly from Tokyo to Sapporo, spend the night there, and then head to Misawa the following morning. I shared with her my concern about communication since I spoke no Japanese. She assured me that I would be just fine as Sapporo was an international city. “After all,” she said, “The winter Olympics were held there, so there should be loads of English speakers in the city.”

In August, I headed to the airport in D.C. with my eighteen-month old daughter and all of our luggage. We would be spending the next two months in Japan. As we boarded the first of several flights on our journey to Japan, I was feeling very confident in my abilities to navigate the two of us through the long trip.

I arrived in Japan with a somewhat cranky child. It had been a long flight from Chicago. She howled when the people at immigration attempted to help us. She howled when we boarded the flight to Sapporo and she continued to howl the entire flight. When we arrived at the Sapporo airport, I think most of the passengers were ready to see the two Americans go.

Miraculously, Tiffany stopped crying in the airport so I was able to search for English speakers to help me find my way to the hotel. I was really looking forward to a nice hot bath. It was then that I realized my difficulties were just beginning.

I stopped several people to ask for assistance, even if it was to simply point me in the direction of the information booth. No one seemed to understand what I was saying. After what seemed to be a very long time spent trying to find anyone who could speak just a few words in English, I made a rash decision. I decided to stand in the middle of the baggage claim area and just yell the name of my hotel at the top of my voice.

Now you can imagine what a sight I must have been. A young American woman in the middle of a Japanese airport with a toddler in her arms just yelling over and over the name of a hotel. Some kind Japanese man must have taken pity on me. He guided me to a bus just outside the airport, said something to the driver, and indicated to me that I should sit down with my daughter. He was even kind enough to put our bags on the bus.

At every stop, I looked at the bus driver and repeated the name of my hotel. And at every stop, he nodded his head. Finally we reached the hotel! The one whose name I had become intimately acquainted with. I scooped up my daughter and struggled off the bus with all our baggage in tow. Once I got off of the bus and it had pulled away, I tripped and fell to the ground. I sat there and started to cry. My daughter gently wiped away my tears as the bell hop from the hotel gathered all of our things and showed us to the entrance of the hotel.

We finally made it to our room, took that hot bath I had longed for and then I did the one thing that made me feel the best. I called my Mommy and I asked her to please just speak English to me! International travel lesson learned: it is important to learn a few basic phrases in the language of the country you will be visiting.

Language Barriers

Siteseeing

During the summer of 1983, my husband was on a deployment with his Navy squadron in Okinawa, Japan. My infant daughter and I were able to spend one month of the six month deployment with him. Traveling from Washington, D.C., to Okinawa, Japan with a five month old baby was not an easy task, but somehow I managed!

While we were in Japan, my husband and I decided that we would visit some of the historic sites on the island. We went to the USO office at Kadena Air Force base and asked for information on how to get to the suicide cliffs. The cliffs were where Japanese officers and soldiers committed ritual suicide rather than surrender to the U.S. and Allied forces. The woman at the information desk gave us explicit directions on which public buses to take and where to get off. Our journey from Kadena to the cliffs would take us through Naha, the largest city in Okinawa, where we would have to change buses.

Loaded up with our directions and tourist information, the three of us-husband, wife and baby-set out on our excursion. Without being able to read a thing in Japanese, we managed to find the first bus stop and made it to the bus terminal in Naha. We then changed buses and the real excursion then began.

We were excited as we took our seats in the middle of the bus. Our baby, Tiffany, looked out the bus window and cooed. For quite some time, we were treated to beautiful scenery out that window. At each stop, passengers got off the bus, but very few got on. We continued down rolling, winding roads.

At one point, my husband glanced around the bus and noticed that there were very few remaining passengers. “We must be getting close,” he said to me. “There’s almost no one left. Just us tourists, I guess.” And we continued the ride.

Finally, the bus driver pulled off to the side of the road. The American trio was all that was left of a bus full of people coming out of Naha. He got out of his seat and came back to greet us. He said something to my husband. Speaking no Japanese, my husband politely responded “Naha. We want to go back to Naha.” It was about this time that we realized we had probably taken the wrong bus.

As a language educator, I find what happened next very amusing. The bus driver repeated what he had initially said, but this time it was in a volume about twice as loud as the first time. Then, taking his turn, my husband did the same thing. The shouting match continued for several minutes. I suppose each man thought that if he expressed himself slightly louder he might be understood.

I believe that my husband won the shouting match. The bus driver reluctantly returned to his seat and drove us back to the bus terminal in Naha. Exhausted from the experience, we decided to take the bus that we knew would return us to Kadena.

We never did see the suicide cliffs and for the remainder of our stay in Okinawa, we stayed very close to the gates of the base. The lesson we learned for international travel is that louder does not mean better. Increased volume will not necessarily improve your chances of being understood, but you must stand firm in your desires!