Nurkiras
Dead Stargod 
Nawty Bard
ycdn
Posts: 8,401 
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Post by Nurkiras on May 15, 2018 10:21:18 GMT 9
squeeze away, the worst that happens is they don't tell you anything more
They might listen if you phrase it as a "this will make you look bad abroad and damage your reputation" argument especially, more so than "this is wishy-washy and Americans need more directness" which will get written off as just ~cultural differences~
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Post by Ham on May 15, 2018 10:25:33 GMT 9
TrickPhoenix imo the whole MURISHINAIDE thing sounds like the typical Japanese "We don't want to go through with this but are too WA to come out and say no so read the air plz" But I think maybe this is the time to GAIJIN SMASH and tell them that the other city is pushing for an answer and that being AIMAI like this is considered very rude in the GREAT GUYKOK so please HAKKIRI SASETE your intentions.
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Post by shanshan310 on May 15, 2018 10:26:54 GMT 9
I totally agree that it looks rude to suddenly turn a cold shoulder. +1 to grilling for more information.
I would pull out your CIR card and use this as a chance to tell them that in AMELIKA BUMKA being wishy washy is rude and will not inspire confidence in working with the city in the future.
I hope you can at least get something on paper!
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Post by TrickPhoenix on May 15, 2018 10:29:06 GMT 9
Thanks guys! Wanted to confirm that I'm still in touch with the venerable GAIKOKU culture of giving a straight answer and that I'm not the one being overly fussy about it hue
When soup returns to his desk... fire up the George Foreman cause it's TIME FOR GRILLING
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Nurkiras
Dead Stargod
Nawty Bard
ycdn
Posts: 8,401
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Post by Nurkiras on May 15, 2018 10:32:49 GMT 9
i'm actually terrified I will get a job in the US and my boss will get angry with me for dithering around because I've absorbed NEMAWASYI and ENKYOK office practices anyway, happy grilling!  |
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Mumblesnore
Dead Stargod
’Tis the season (for Eggnog)
Posts: 16,154
CIR Experience: Former CIR
Location: Tokyo
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Post by Mumblesnore on May 15, 2018 10:45:05 GMT 9
Suddenly I want a hamburger and a bratwurst or two. |
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Post by ことしも魚ろしく on May 15, 2018 11:02:00 GMT 9
Oops, wrote this earlier but it didn't post.
But pretty much to piggyback off of what everyone else said, I would totally squeeze for more info. And yes a BIMYOU response I imagine wouldn't be very helpful; possibly could be harmful as you say.
Did they give you a letter to translate and send off? Or are they just kind of like "here's the gist of what we want you to tell them (that we're feeling BIMYOU and that they shouldn't MURI), we'll leave the writing of the letter up to you"? If it's the latter, I would ask your soup to write the exact letter in Japanese so you can translate it and send it off, but before you translate it, check it and tell them what kind of response they can anticipate and try to make adjustments from there. I find that having them write the letter makes them solidify what they wanna say, and in my experience people here are much less BIMYOU in their emails (or at least it's easier to infer what they really wanna say. If it's STILL BIMYOU I would check and be like "so this pretty much means, we don't wanna be sister cities/we wanna wait/etc, right?")
This is how I usually do important correspondence with my sister city. For easy whatever communication they just tell me the gist and I write the email myself, but for the important stuff, like details on a visit or exchange, I ask my soup/Kacho/whoever to write the letter in Japanese for me to translate, and tell them I wanna do it this way so I don't mess up any of the details (also so if anything goes pear-shaped I have proof that the original message is what was wrong).
Also, to combat BIMYOU-ness I used to always find myself saying to my soup, はっきりした答えを出さないと、、、（話が前に進みません・印象が悪いです・あっちが困ってしまいます・etc)
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Nurkiras
Dead Stargod
Nawty Bard
ycdn
Posts: 8,401
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Post by Nurkiras on May 15, 2018 11:10:17 GMT 9
"外国人の中ではですね、やっぱり日本の素敵な「空気を読む文化」を把握できる人がものすごく少ないので、カタカナ英語で説明してあげたほうがいいと思うんですが。。。"
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Post by Ham on May 15, 2018 11:12:04 GMT 9
外国ではね、空気がないから読めないの。
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Post by TrickPhoenix on May 15, 2018 11:14:04 GMT 9
ことしも魚ろしく they asked me first to WAYAK some stuff, and the implication was that we might have a meeting with the mayor to discuss how to go forward, but I don't think they want me to respond just yet, but soup told me in advance that the general notion is all the BIMYOU and don't MURI stuff. But in any case I'm going to need to reply soon just to be in the realm of politeness, and also because they are moving ahead quickly to recruit new volunteers, and if they move forward with that and THEN we say "hue not interested" it will become even more of an issue But you're right, I should probably ask for someone else to write out a formal response and just ask me to translate it, so that there isn't any mistake made on my part in regards to what they want. That's actually a really great idea, thank you!
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Post by ことしも魚ろしく on Dec 26, 2018 17:26:00 GMT 9
not sure if this belongs here but:
what are some cool things your city does with your sister cities?
all we have is like a visit every other year and...thats it i think? might be time to add to it...
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Post by 𝑜𝓇𝒾𝒽𝒾𝓂𝑒 on Dec 26, 2018 22:38:52 GMT 9
My city's sister city in England is, amusingly, Bath, and the other month, one of the schools here did an EMAKIMONO (a scroll made up of pictured the kids had drawn, some were really impressive o,o) and sent it to the school in Bath, which I thought was really sweet. They drew local places, food, and characters like Pokemon and our town mascot ^^
KACHOU, SHICHOU and cool rugby department guy also went to Bath last week (as well as Cardiff, London, Rome and Frankfurt I think) or so but I'm not sure what for.
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Post by ことしも魚ろしく on Dec 27, 2018 9:41:04 GMT 9
My city's sister city in England is, amusingly, Bath, and the other month, one of the schools here did an EMAKIMONO (a scroll made up of pictured the kids had drawn, some were really impressive o,o) and sent it to the school in Bath, which I thought was really sweet. They drew local places, food, and characters like Pokemon and our town mascot ^^ KACHOU, SHICHOU and cool rugby department guy also went to Bath last week (as well as Cardiff, London, Rome and Frankfurt I think) or so but I'm not sure what for. sending them shit! that's an obvious but very good one that i dont think we do at all! nice! hmm what can we send to them... |
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