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!