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Not Every Time

My boss is Japanese and can kinda understand and operate in English if forced to, but he's not forced to that often. I'm his deputy general manager, officially as of next month, but that's really just to help him cover the parts of his role that involve overseas issues like meetings and other communications that take place in English.

In the context of our Japanese division, especially within the organizational management, we operate completely in Japanese. And I can keep up with that. To a certain extent.

Most of the time.

Today was a challenge.

I met with my boss for over an hour so he could go over a document that outlines changes to the company's employment policies as they relate to the evolving labor laws in Japan. I reviewed the document before the meeting and I already knew I was in for it.

Over the years living here and learning the language I've gotten used to the idea that I don't need to understand every single word or notion to communicate. To keep a conversation going you sometimes just have to bookmark unfamiliar phrases in your head and pray that context will tie everything together.

It usually does. Usually.

But today my boss was explaining some intensely complex and important things that I need to understand every part of since I have to explain it all to non-Japanese speaking staff and it affects their livelihood.

So I exercised a muscle I need to exercise more - humble ignorance. My boss and I have known each other for a number of years and I'm pretty sure he knows the threshold of my Japanese abilities, so he was patient. I had to access all of my inner being to reveal when I didn't 100% understand what he was saying, and that tired me out.

It made me realize that I've spent the last 23 years of interpersonal relationships not fully understanding where my Japanese friends and family are really coming from. I comprehend fully much of the time, but not every time.

And then I realized that I have the same issue with people I interact with in English. Understanding people isn't just a language thing.

Even after all of my detailed questions and hypotheticals I can confidently say I still don't understand the new employment policies completely, and I told that to my boss. He laughed. He said even he is struggling to wrap his mind around some of it.

Next week I'll be preparing a presentation to explain all of it to non-Japanese staff and it's gonna be a chance to access my ignorance, ask for help, and become a slightly better communicator.

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