[JManc]

Originally Posted by Shawn

I’ve lived in Japan since 2002 and until COVID and the PRC’s new laws spent combined years conducting business throughout APAC. Native English speakers who cannot make the effort of learning basic, day to day local expressions get shit on even harder than those who aren’t native English speakers. Everyone resents the arrogance and presumptiveness of it all. At least the Russians and French in Tokyo who can’t speak Japanese don’t presume to yell coffee orders in Russian or French. It’s always the American who rapid-fires off some iced Ristretto, 10 shot, venti, with breve, 5 pump vanilla, 4 Splenda, and poured, not shaken-type order in English so loud all the heads turn.

Look, I don’t speak Bahasa or Korean, but I can order a coffee or a whiskey in each when I’m working from Jakarta or Seoul. And it took all of 2 minutes to nail that down with a Google Translate lookup at the airport.

Before I went to Japan for an academic conference years ago, I crash coursed on basic Japanese vocabulary/ phrases to the point that my colleagues would ask me how to say certain things when we were out and about.