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By the way, I highly recommend Din Tai Fon in Takashimaya in Shinjuku-great Chinese dumplings.

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Blue Parrot Bookshop Takadanobaba www.blueparrottokyo.com/home.html

They specialize in second-hand English language books.

@Khatzumoto

OK, thinking about it, I don’t recall seeing sasete itadaku described as keigo, just as a polite turn of phrase.Looks like it’s been creeping into uses previously the reserved for keigo. Things have gone down hill since 1966.

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I understand what you mean by being scared at the whole interview process: the suits, the resumes, and all that. That’s part of the reason why I wanted to go into the sciences. The interview process (if you want to call it that) is much less formal, and in most ways the interview is for you to find the right advisor, not the other way around. I believe the reason you went and did your Japanese interviews was more about making your ‘act’ become real than about ‘playing the game’ or any of the other reasons you would interview for American companies. You’re trying not just to take your proficiency to the next level, but to actually live the language, at work and at play. Basically you’re living your motto to the fullest.

I suppose your answer to MZMZ’s question was sufficient: sure you don’t like to interview, but since it’s in Japanese, it’s an entirely different story. I don’t know for sure if you liked interviewing in Japanese, but it’s a heck of a lot more interesting than if you did them in English. But my question is: if you’re so scared of doing them in English, wouldn’t you be that much more scared when you’re doing them in Japanese, a language that still (at least up to Oct.2005) lags behind your English?

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Love your blog as always.

Just a couple things about your recent post:

I know people have already harped upon the advanced technology in Japan, and I’ll be one of many people who’ll tell you (including you) that there are some amazing stuff over there, but at least in the sciences, Japan is deficient when it comes to equipment. I know they have that giant neutrino detector, but when it comes to “simple” things like electron microscopes, they are a bit strapped. Wonder why so many people come to the States to do their research?

And about the させて頂く stuff. There’s a funny anecdote in Jay Rubin’s book (Making Sense of Japanese) about coming across a sign that says 本日は休ませて頂きます. He decided to make a plaque out of it and there it sits in his office to this day (from what I know). He says that the politeness expressed by the sign is similar to English equivalents like “thank you for not smoking”, or “gone fishin’” (OK, the last one is not so polite) and the usage has more force than a direct imperative sometimes.

Anyway that’s me. As always, keep up the great work!

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The only 敬語 I came across was 尊敬語／謙譲語 verb replacements, 美化語 additions of 御, and of course 丁寧語 です/ます. This is actually one of the very first 敬語 sites I used (maybe the first) , out of about four. So, I was expecting people to 致す/為さる, to 拝見・拝読/ご覧に成る rather than される/させて頂く.

Anyway, after the initial surprise I figured it out quickly enough from hearing it in context, so…no animals were hurt.

[A]>Would you please let me do..” or “Please excuse me for….. “.
[B]>“I’m going to take the liberty of doing…..”
That’s funny you should mention that. When you read the sources in the link up there, one of the things that people are taking issue with is the fact that a construction that means [A] is starting to mean [B]; something that implies action with permission is being used for unilateral action.

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…a VERY POLITE (upper caps are his) was of saying “Would you please let me do..” or “Please excuse me for….. “.

Although it strikes me as being more along the lines of “I’m going to take the liberty of doing…..”

Did you really never come across it? Not even the sasete morau form? Something like: 個人的な事言わして貰えれば。。？I’m guessing if you’d seen/ heard the latter then the former would have been no problem.

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>So my question is: how did you manage to become skilled at something you dislike?
That’s a really good question. I guess the whole willingness to play the game for the Bilingual Career Forum was that I truly wanted to live in Japan, and I genuinely had respect for all the cool things that had come out of this country and filled my childhood. So at the worst it was a “means to an end” thing.

But with the regular American career forums, I was just being carried by the assumptions and values, the 流れ,of people around me at college, namely: “If [insert major American organization here] in all its glory and mercy decides to hire you, then thank the stars, for you are truly blessed”…type thing? Truth be told, I hadn’t even wanted to go to college in the first place, but I let myself get swept up into that 流れ, too, and once I was in college, I played that game like it was my life. Stupid. Stupid.

Another issue may be that I was “acting” at Japanese anyway (like I’ve discussed previously — imitating speaking styles, usage and pronunciation). So, the “acting” at the career forum didn’t feel as unnatural as it might have in English, where I’ve been “acting” so long it seems more or less real.

It may well all come back to my attitude going in. At American career forums, I was sucking up. At the BCF, I was breaking the mold just by being non-Japanese at what was essentially a forum for Japanese kids who had been to college in the US (there were a few other non-Japanese kids there, too, and a Japanese-American guy…good people). So, it was a game, and I was playing on my on terms. I chose to learn keigo, where I didn’t feel like I was actively choosing to do anything, in the US. Like many people, I’d been in school almost my whole life (most of it boarding school, to boot)…and school isn’t really in the business of teaching people to make actual, active life choices…

Anyway, as it happens working at a company isn’t that hot; there are much smarter economic (and emotional…and intellectual) options, IMHO.

But, yeah, that’s a really good question and I’m not sure of the answer myself. But I guess one answer might be: I didn’t dislike doing the BCF interviews as such, I was scared to pieces, but I also saw it as a chance to prove my Japanese proficiency in a much more realistic and meaningful (and profitable) and direct way than something like the JL-freaking-PT.

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I seriously didn’t mean any offense.

I know many people who are smart but don’t look like it. They don’t wear glasses, don’t wear suits, don’t use many words when talking, are super-humble when they have to say something about their skills. They don’t act like wise people, yet they know their stuff. I always thought showing off is counter-productive and influences learning in a negative way. Yet, presenting skills is necessary on interviews, otherwise the interviewers may not believe you know the stuff you know, or am I mistaken somewhere?

“I couldn’t bring myself to go through the suit-wearing, resume-writing, smiling motions.” <– yet you decided to go through it anyway? Why? “I realized that I wanted to go and make cool electronics” <– Well ok but how were you able to become good at something you dislike so much? Is it even possible become skilled at something you don’t like, even if the goal is something good?

IMHO The AJAT methods presented on this site are incredibly effective when it comes to improving the skills, but unlike college classes (which I don’t like myself either) they don’t make a person appear like he/she was doing something “serious” and was brainy. If someone centers his/her whole life around learning a language in such way he/she doesn’t actively exercise the “look at me I’m smart” skill.

I’m totally confused.

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Maybe I’m totally wrong– but maybe you have the same idea as me, and it’s not so much literally that they are 15 years ahead, but that every minute detail of everything around you seems to have been given thought. The “common knowledge” of Westeners in Japan is that Japanese are so-called collectivistic and have no chance for creativity. But in reality it’s ridiculous–look at the creativity that goes into mangas, look at 711 which changes their product lines and has totally new beverage flavors bi-weekly while USA convenience stores have the same stuff as 10 years ago, look at a coffee shop where each product’s flavor is specificed down to a science on a 5 point scale of factors like aroma level, bitterness, sweetness… Even in my dorm room I was totally impressed with the way everything felt as if someone sat down and thought “a HUMAN BEING will live here, what possible things can we do to make light switches and everything make more sense TOGETHER AS A WHOLE”, while in the US a room is a room and there are light switches and sockets, but they are just installed — there isn’t that feeling that it was thought about as a “whole entity”.

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