Cultural Stereotyping

or, Mommy, Why is there Janglish?

Cultural differences are a two-way street. Whatever our personal attitudes, we have a certain 'national' character, just as the Japanese and most other cultures do, and the clash of our attitudes hinders communication. To see how this works, consider an example:

How do you feel when you open a manual for a Trangsang VCR and it says, "For the starting of your VCR, see page 2"? You will buy the product, right? And get a laugh at the expense of the translator, who probably wasn't native in English. Well, the fact is, your prospective Japanese customer won't buy your product, for two reasons.

First, the Japanese are extremely nationalistic. It's not so much that they don't like Americans; it's more that they see us as 'different' somewhat in the way we might regard Indians stalking monkeys in the jungles of Brazil as 'different.' They don't expect us to use good Japanese; how could we? It's such a complex language, only a Japanese person can comprehend it, after all. They aren't alone in this, by the way; a Navajo friend once told me that learning Navajo is easy. "First, you get born Navajo...."

Now, do you think that English is so complex only a native speaker can manage it? Probably not. There you are: cultural diversity. And that said, would you buy a VCR made by the Guarani of central Brazil? Only if you were confident that they knew what they were doing, surely. The poor (that is to say, non-native) Japanese usage in the manual is as worries the Japanese customer the same way that having a big spider run out of the packing material would worry you. He might go so far as to say that it isn't really translated at all.

The second problem is that the Japanese, like many cultures, differ from the typical U.S. American in their willingness to put up with imperfection. Imagine this: You start putting together a $30 toy you bought for your daughter, and you discover there is a screw missing. The average American would mutter something about cheap craftsmanship, and then go downstairs and look for a suitable screw. The Japanese consumer would take the toy back. And the average Japanese vendor would be deeply embarrassed and apologetic. Imagine yourself in the American store where you bought the toy. "Screw missing? Oh, yeah, we get a lot a' that. You want another one? You'n check to make sure the screws are all there, if you want." Or try it in New York: "You brought this thing all the way back here just 'cause there's a stinking screw missing! Whaddayou want? Yer money back? My heart onna plate?" And of course in some cities you might run the chance of getting beaten up.... To the Japanese consumer, any compromise in the quality of the documentation is a signal that the product itself has been thrown together in typical 'American' fashion.

There's an interesting sidelight to this odd cultural communication gap. With their standards of perfection, why do the Japanese sell VCRs and microwaves in the U.S. with manuals that give anyone who can read English a fit of the giggles? Well, Americans don't care about quality, right? And English, unlike Japanese, is a language any idiot can master. Didn't we tell them so, during the MacArthur era? Cultural diversity....

Moral: Localization is an economic decision.