Posted by CP on 11/9/2001, 5:18 pm There's a sayonara party Sunday night. I don't have to do any volunteer, official interpreting then, so I hope to venture into the hallway every once in a while to "get some fresh air" ;-) Hope I have something to report back on, especially from the Japanese women there. There is also a Korean group here, with some nice looking ladies, but I don't expect them to smoke in front of their male Korean colleagues.
I'm helping with a little theatre festival this weekend, acting like I can interpret for the chairman of the festival committe at last night's welcome party. Groups are here from several countries. I am also going to help during the performances of a Dutch group tomorrow if any interpretation needs done behind the scenes. What I'm posting all of this here for is a couple interesting cross-cultural things that have come up. For example, at any Japanese event like this, there is always a lot of smoking, at least by men. But at last night's party, there was no smoking allowed in the main hall where the party was. Smokers had to go to the hallway and to the side to smoke. (Sorry, didn't have a chance to see if any women were out there.) Guess the party organizers figured since no smoking is allowed at many such events in countries outside of Japan, they should follow suit for the party here. Second thing to report: I received a list of the members of the Dutch group. Only about six kinds of information are supplied beside their name. And yes, smoking is one of them! Three of the six women listed themselves as smokers. (I'm sure the list is primarily prepared for the local families who are hosting the individual members.)
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