In English, Please!
A commercial for AEON English lessons plays off the old “Japanese with screwed up intonation = foreign” joke when having a little girl ask for a second helping “in English”:
Meanwhile, it seems that a couple sites have been discussing a sign that was found at a QB House barber shop in Tokyo:
I’ve been to a few QB House barber shops over the years, and haven’t seen any sign like that. Back in the day when I could barely speak any Japanese, I went through the trouble of always looking up certain phrases and bringing some notes with me to the barber. I was never turned away.
Comments threads about the sign have been a mixture of people who don’t really see a big problem with a store in Japan expecting customers to speak Japanese, and people who think this sign is yet another example of racism against foreigners. A couple people even seemed offended by notion that QB House wouldn’t be prepared to deal with customers who only spoke English.
As in past instances of outrage reported on Debito.org, it seems that none of the people expressing outrage over the sign actually called up the Japanese company to complain about it. A Japanese blogger called QB House and asked for an explanation, and got this answer:
1)They pulled down the sign in question.
2)They welcome foreigners.
3)The purpose of the sign was not to exclude anybody unfairly but telling people in advance,”we’ll do our best, but there might be a case where we may refuse service when the communication breaks down.”
4)whether to set up a new sign or what to write on the sign is under consideration.
A new sign has since been put up:
The new sign uses slightly different wording, and the messed-up English only serves to underline just how unprepared they are to offer service to people who only speak English. They also include Chinese and Korean versions of the message.
Update from Eido Inoue about the second sign not being new:
I’m the one that took the second picture in your blog post. To clarify (and I don’t blame you because you got your wording from another site which got its wording from yet another site), the second photo of the blue sign is not a “new sign.” Rather, it’s a sign that’s been there since the beginning. You can see the master photo, with EXIF data showing the time and place taken, here:
http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/-DHJtegMTfu15Lc408r_2g?full-exif=true
You can see the comparison of the old sign vs the new sign’s positions here (taken by the original poster, photo EXIF metadata is also included):
http://picasaweb.google.com/nihongode.kk/QB#5561268926491926706
I had a chance to briefly converse with one of the barbers(no more than two and a half minutes; they were packed and had a continuously refilling queue of customers that night) to clarify details about the white an blue signs.
The white sign was an ADDITIONAL English sign added in addition to the pre-existing four language blue sign which had been there for some time (and is present in other QB House establishments as well) because apparently English speakers were ignoring or not noticing the original blue sign. I don’t know how this is possible, as the original blue sign is at eye level about 40cm to the right of the vending machine, whose use is mandatory if you want a haircut.
I’d appreciate it if you could update/correct this blog post to reflect this information. Thanks!
The Japanese blogger who originally called up and complained to the store has since visited it, and found that all such signs are now gone.
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