On English

So many foreigners are surprised at the lack of English in Tokyo, despite mandatory English classes in secondary school.  This topic came up during my koto (Japanese zither) music lesson the other week.  My koto teacher had an interesting take, which I hadn't heard before. 

She admitted to me that she can speak English - but she's more comfortable in Japanese, so she's happy to have our class in Japanese.  (and, anyway, I'm happy to continue in Japanese since this is my year to focus on language acquisition.)  This was funny, because I had had about three classes before she even told me she could speak English.  I commented that, when I lived in Vietnam, if someone spoke even a tiny bit of English he or she would always try to practice with me.  And, though I was trying to learn Vietnamese and wanted to practice with them, it was really hard to find people willing to talk in my middling Vietnamese skills.  

On the other hand, everyone in Japan seemed happy to start out in Japanese.  I wasn't sure if it was because they were more used to hearing foreign-accented Japanese, or perhaps because lack of English-speaking confidence on their part.  

She offered a different possible idea.  She noted one of her friends has a shop, and started speaking English to a foreign customer who walked in.  But, that person didn't speak English.  And then commented how it was tiring to him that everyone assumed he could speak English because he was Caucasian, but he couldn't - however he could speak Japanese.  Thus, the friend now speaks Japanese to all customers, until the customer asks if she can speak English -- because the friend doesn't want to offend customers by assuming all Caucasians speak English.  

I have no idea how widespread this thinking is, but it is interesting to step out of my American-centric viewpoint to think about how English prevalence might be viewed by others.