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Nagoyaguy · Joined: 15 May 2003 Posts: 425 Location: Aichi, Japan

One of the great pet peeves of living in Japan are the Language Leeches. The folks who assume you exist purely for them to practice their English with. The ones who get annoyed when you answer in Japanese.

My approach is two fold. The leeches always seem to delight in asking personal questions. I do the same thing back at them. I ask, "Do you have any daughters? Are they cute? Got any pictures?" and so on.

Second approach is to give them a business card. "My rate is 5000 an hour for private lessons, groups start at 6000. When would you like to start?" This is like garlic in front of a vampire. They fly away "I don't want to study, I just want to talk!"

Now don'T get me wrong. I don't mind helping people out on occasion. If you are my friend or coworker, feel free to ask me anything anytime. If I am reading quietly on the train, don't feel you have the right to get into my personal space and steal my time.

shmooj · Joined: 11 Sep 2003 Posts: 1758 Location: Seoul, ROK

Trying to help my students avoid being leeches I had them say what kinds of questions they would ask while leeching.

One poor soul said "How old are you?" among other things.

I didn't comment, wrote it up on the board with the others.

We then went through and "softened" questions like "Do you have children?" to "I have two boys in high school. I was wondering if you had children too?"

When we got to "How old are you?" and I asked her to soften it, she came up with "What did you do during the war?"

It was all I could do I tell you... Very Happy

Brooks · Joined: 16 Jan 2003 Posts: 1369 Location: Sagamihara

I think when I was on the Yokohama line on a Friday night and this drunk salaryman had to tell me that he was really German and liked listening to German music. When guys are not drunk they tend to leave me alone. But when they are drunk they just do whatever they want. I dislike platform pizza even more (ie vomit near the station or in the bathrooms at stations).

Gordon · Joined: 28 Jan 2003 Posts: 5309 Location: Japan

I once asked my students if they would like to have a foreign friend (I live in a rural area and there aren't many gaijin). Then I asked them why? I hoped to get something like "learn about a new culture", but instead almost all of them said "to learn English". That started a whole new topic about what friends are and aren't.

fat_chris · Joined: 10 Sep 2003 Posts: 3198 Location: Beijing

Language Leeches, I like that phrase.

In China, we called them English Vultures. They're so obvious.

You can spot them a mile away. They just mill on the sidewalk and pace in a 2m x 2m area. They try not to look at you but they just send out a vibe that your gaijin/laowei spidey sense instantly picks up. You pass them and count and know what will happen next, 1...2...3..."hello, excuse me, excuse me...."

I usually just ignore them and become amused by the increased desperation in their voices as they see that I'm not for the taking: "excuse me, excuse me, excuuuuussssseeeeee meeeee."

Lynn · Joined: 28 Jan 2003 Posts: 696 Location: in between

Wow. I've never had a stranger come up to me in Japan and try to practice English. Maybe it's because I am a woman.

lajzar · Joined: 09 Feb 2003 Posts: 647 Location: Saitama-ken, Japan

Me too. Maybe they assume Im Brazilian, not being the blond blue eyed stereotype.

april · Joined: 07 May 2003 Posts: 83 Location: Australia

Well it's not because you are a woman because I always had people approach me to practise English. I am also not blonde, and don't have blue eyes.

I think I have one of those 'friendly, kind looking' faces because most times when I visit tourist attractions (in any country) I am always the one people ask "excuse me, would you mind taking our photo?"

einsenundnullen · Joined: 07 Jul 2003 Posts: 76

The "language vultures" thing is something. I've never experienced anything like that. My experience hasn't been so much with people trying to engage in small talk, but with people who I thought were just being sociable and looking for someone to hang out with and get to know as a friend. They were not, as it turned out. One individual eventually asked me to help translate a document. That's way out of my league, so basically what it means is that a direct, literal translation of the Japanese would be read to/barked at me, and it would be my job to 'add' syntax and grammar. This would have been volunteer work, mind you. I had an eye problem that day (actually I did).

Chris

ScottishMike · Joined: 21 Sep 2003 Posts: 45

Yeah I find that they can happen.

I`m all for people getting out and using their English, if their purpose is actually to find out something about someone that they want to know. But when they want to ask you grammatical details, yep, it`s business card time.

Although I do have this one guy that asks me every week "American?"

I`ve started with, "well I wasn`t last week, but this week..."

and now I just choose the first country I can think of.

Today I`m Uzbekistanian

cabbagehead · Joined: 22 Sep 2003 Posts: 46 Location: Japan

Tried something similar to ScottishMike the other week.

My Japanese friend introduced me to three of his friends one after the other. In each case, he spoke in Japanese and so did I. The people I was being introduced to each said "Hello. Nice to meet you." as they shook my hand.

As this finished I looked at them and said in Japanese "I'm sorry, I don't speak English. I'm from Germany."

They looked at each other shocked and then proceeded to talk to each other about how interesting it was that someone from Germany couldn't speak English. Instead of getting irritated by this I fessed up and said, no I'm joking I'm from Britain at which point the ice broke and there were laughs all round.

Can't win it seems. Rolling Eyes

Lynn · Joined: 28 Jan 2003 Posts: 696 Location: in between

I had always planned to say I was from the Kamchatka peninsula if anyone tried to speak to me in English, but I never got the chance. I did, however, have an old couple come up to me and ask directions in Japanese. I was so flattered. I carefully led them to the "Minamiguchi" of the train station. I think they couldn't see well. I wonder if they could figure out I wasn't Japanese.

I also got a massage from a blind Japanese man. He asked if I was Japanese-American because I had a Japanese build. (my bones)

And I've also had non-Japanese people speak Spanish to me. I really regret that I took two years of French in high school instead of Spanish. I couldn't help them much.

One of my good friends in Japan was actually from the Philipines, but she couldn't speak English, so we spoke Japanese. It was kind of weird sometimes.

Gordon · Joined: 28 Jan 2003 Posts: 5309 Location: Japan

When someone annoyingly asks me where I come from, I tell them "I come from my mother." They look inquisitively and I have a chance to walk away.

cabbagehead · Joined: 22 Sep 2003 Posts: 46 Location: Japan

Lynn

your experience reminded me of a similar one in Seoul with an old Korean man who had had to learn Japanese at school. Initially we started talking in English but his was so bad that, on hearing we were from Japan, we started in Japanese. You should have seen the looks we got on the train! Seems Japanese is still a loaded language in Korea Confused

kovac · Joined: 12 Apr 2003 Posts: 78

In Japan Ive had many people trying to practice english on me also....Being from Scotland I say...."I dont speak English Im from Scotland, I speak Scottish"...to which most people seem surprised and confused (Most Japanese dont seem to know where or what Scotland is)..I then go onto to translate various "english" phrases into broad Scots tounge..."Hai...Dai suki...de sukottorondo-go wa...ahm-pure-dead-intae-tha"...always a giggle seeing them trying to repeat it likes its German or Russian or summink...plus always a bonus when some big daft yank approaches you wanting a "Hey Im a gaijin, your a gaijin" chat....."eigo dekinai...no english, sumimasen"
Laughing