You Don't Need to be Fluent to be an Interpreter

Sometimes you don't even have to talk.

A camera-shy Igarashi-san.

I paced back and forth through the clutter of my living room, calendar in one hand, cell phone in the other. On the other end of the line was Mr. Sato, a programming director for NHK, Japan’s national television broadcasting station.

“Have you ever done any interpreting?” he asked. He sounded about my age.

Ten years prior I’d gotten on as a temporary interpreter for ESPN, at the World Figure Skating Championships in Tokyo. No matter that I spent most of the week taping down loose wires and restocking the fridge in the staff area. It was, at least in name, an interpreting gig.

“Sure, I’ve done a little interpreting,” I said, ending the qualification section of this phone interview for a job I knew virtually nothing about except that it would involve either interpreting or stocking a fridge.

Miura-san, my friend from the inter-cultural community resource center here in town, was the one who initially put me in touch with NHK. “They need someone to go to Hakuba for three days,” she’d said. “Starting this Thursday.”

“Sure, I can do it,” I told her, which was a lie. I had three classes to teach on Thursday. “No problem. Please give them my phone number.”

Lying is okay if you can make it true, and I moved my Thursday classes to the following Tuesday (which is easy if you are the boss of your own school). A few hours later I got the call from Sato-san.

As he let loose with a barrage of formal phrases meant to convey the idea that he was glad I had done a little interpreting and hoped that we would be able to work well together, I envisioned myself walking alongside someone famous as a camera crew followed us around the streets and slopes of Hakuba, site of the 1998 Winter Olympics. I’d do a bang-up job of interpreting. I’d crack a couple of timely jokes. I’d launch a new career as an interpreter for NHK, traveling all over Japan and further abroad and plastering my facebook page with photos of me and all my celebrity friends.

“If you can get to Hakuba Station at 1pm Thursday that would be great,” he said. “All your meals and lodging will be taken care of.” Then he paused. “…Any questions?”

He knew I had a question. He was also hoping I wouldn't ask, I could hear it in the breath he was holding.

“Yes, one question,” I said, breaking the silence and dashing Sato-san’s threadbare hopes of ending our talk three seconds ago. “Miura-san said the job paid 10,000 yen per day, is that right?” That’s a hundred bucks American, give or take. The meals and lodging better be reeeeeally good, Mr. Sato.

“Yes, that’s right. Is that acceptable?”

No.

“Yes. I guess it’s acceptable (if you’re a lunatic). Though for an entire day…for ten or twelve (or like, three) hours don’t you think it’s a little low?”

He did. I could hear him sweating. “Yes, well, it’s, you know…”

Yes, I know. It’s not your decision.

“It’s not a major issue,” I said. “I’ll do it.” Heck, I’d already rescheduled my classes. “But if there’s any way…”

In Japan, this is about as tough as negotiations get when your leverage consists of “I’ve done a little interpreting”.

“Thank you, Kebin-san. Thank you!”

“No problem. I’ll see you at Hakuba Station at 1pm on Thursday.” Cheapskate.

TV Time

Lake Kizaki, where I took my sons camping once.
And taught them to always respect a place you break into.

On Wednesday I checked the train times (you know, just for kicks) and realized I had far fewer
choices than I expected. Basically exactly two. I could get to Hakuba Station either ninety minutes early or five minutes late. This sucks when you live in a place where five minutes late is as socially awkward as five hours late.

It sucks more when you realize you never asked the person you are meeting for their phone number. Then it sucks less once you realize their number is probably on your incoming calls list.

I rarely get a phone call from anyone who is not my wife, so my new boss’s number stuck out like a beacon in the dark telephonic record of my quiet married existence.

“Sato-san, it’s Kevin…”

I think he actually snickered at me for thinking five minutes would be an issue. Was he part Chinese? “No problem, Kebin-san. I’ll tell the taxi driver you will arrive at Hakuba Station at 1:05pm.”

Among other pertinent bits of information, I assumed.

In Matsumoto there was little snow on the ground and lots of perky retirees on the train, all clad in brand-name outdoor gear and toting neat, well-worn rucksacks. By the time we reached Azumi-Oiwake, ten miles to the north, the train was almost empty and the world was covered in snow. We passed Lake Kizaki, where I once took my boys for a night of camping.

Camping in a cold driving rain because someone forgot to check the weather report.

Lucky for me and my boys someone forgot to lock one of the lakeside cabins.

The train slipped further north, over flat white lands marked by faint contours where the rice fields were hibernating. We wound through forests of snow-laden branches and three-meter snow banks. The mountains of Hakuba, wrapped in their white winter blankets, scraped and brushed the glittering blue sky.

I walked to the front of the train, then to the back, snapping pictures out the windows like a tourist. Which I was. My wife never calls to say let’s go to Hakuba.

My taxi was waiting for me outside the station. “Kebin-san?” (‘Yes.’) “Kebin-san. Hai, dohzo.” And he helped me throw my backpack into the trunk.

“Where are you going?” he asked as I dumped myself into the back seat.

I had no idea. “I have no idea. What did Sato-san say?”

“…Who?”

In Japan, being on time is important. Knowing where you are going, or anything else for that matter, is optional.

Interesting place, Japan.

I called Sato-san. No answer. Cabbie-san called his dispatcher who, I think, took a wild guess and told him to take me to the Highland Hotel, up on a hill in the opposite direction from the ski village and the ski slopes and pretty much everything else.

Except for one pretty thing.

There were two people behind the front desk, a friendly-faced man with a welcoming demeanor and a quietly, fantastically attractive woman with an intelligence in her eyes. In such a situation, who would you gravitate toward? The answer can say a lot about you.

I introduced myself as James Bond before giving my real name. “I’m with Sato-san from NHK?” Not that it was a question but it came out like one.

Hypnotizing me with her dark demure eyes, this young woman (who had already made me forget where I was) told me I couldn’t check in until 3pm but she’d absolutely love to keep my backpack for me in the meantime. And I would absolutely love to stand here and talk to you forever in the meantime. Alas, our conversational rapport would end after her well-rehearsed explanation about the dining hall, the hotel onsen and the Wi-Fi password.

As if on cue Sato-san called me, allowing my dark-eyed angel to escape.

“I’ll be there in a little while,” he said. Which was fine. He probably had a lot to do.

“I’ll be here in the lobby,” I replied. As if there were anywhere else to go.

The view from the lobby of the Highland Hotel is almost enough to make you forget about the shitty Wi-Fi.

The spacious lobby was filled with rows of boxy, cloth-upholstered chairs that were somehow both uncomfortable and sleep-inducing. Over in one corner an angular wooden bench ran three quarters around the sunken fire pit – which for the moment was more a sunken dead ash pit. The far wall was comprised entirely of windows, creating a striking panorama of the mountains. I drank in the scenery and glanced at my phone, growing increasingly impatient at the Wi-Fi that wouldn't connect. How was I going to post my pictures of the train ride here on facebook before falling asleep in my chair?

I double-checked the password with the friendly-looking guy. (Love Eyes wasn't around). It still didn't work. He had no explanation. I wandered off, plying the hallways until I found the onsen (a luxury I’d indulge in later) and the dining hall (a growing necessity as the hotel had nothing to offer besides souvenir cookies from the gift shop and overpriced beer from the vending machines).

Back at reception my angel had been replaced by a friendly girl with average eyes who was no better than the guy at figuring out the Wi-Fi. I tried to explain that my friends in the U.S. (most of whom were asleep) needed to see the photos I took from the train. She smiled and nodded and uttered a few pat niceties before inviting me to go relax in the lobby or somewhere else not near her.

Back in the lobby I gazed out at the mountains. I checked the time. I cursed the Wi-Fi and dozed off and woke to a stream of high school students flowing by, dropping their bags and skis in a pile at the bottom of a cordoned-off staircase while very politely cursing the Wi-Fi. After cursing the Wi-Fi myself once again (not nearly as politely) I got back to gazing at the mountains.

At 3:15 Friendly Girl came over to tell me my room was ready. I grabbed my bag from Friendly Guy (where the hell was my angel?) and, after a brief struggle with my room key, dropped my bag on the near bed and fired up some complimentary tea.

Good thing our train had snow tires..

My room had two twin beds and a fantastic view of the mountains that I’d already counted a hundred times (always getting a different number). I took off my socks and stretched out on the bed against the wall. My interest in the view began waning. I turned the TV on, flipped through all six channels and shut the thing off. I scrolled through the pictures I took on the train. Entirely out of boredom I tried the Wi-Fi.

It shot through my Android like lightning.

I posted my favorite shots to facebook and sipped my tea.

My post got one like in thirty minutes.

At 4:00 I went back out to the lobby. Two men possibly about my age but not nearly as svelte sat drinking Asahi Super Dry out of 500mL cans.

“Haya goin’?” I said.

This, a friend once told me, was how Australian people greeted each other. More recently another friend had told me that in Hakuba there were more Australians than Japanese.

“You lost?” one of them asked. Australians are so endearing.

“Nope, just waiting for my guy.”

They said nothing. I think they thought I was gay.

The Wi-Fi had disappeared again. Outside of the hotel there really was nowhere to go. I’ll qualify that by saying there was nowhere within a few minutes’ walk. And I didn't want to wander too far and have to make a mad dash back to the hotel when Sato-san finally called. Assuming he remembered he’d asked me to be here.

He did remember. At 5:20pm. “We’re on our way,” he said, adding a polite apology for taking so long. I went outside to wait, no idea what Sato-san looked like and still no idea what was going on that necessitated an interpreter.

As I waited, a few people came and went. I glanced at each of them, with a look that I hoped could be construed as both “Hello, stranger” and “Hello Sato-san.”

Sato-san got more of a Hello Stranger look. He was a lot younger than I expected. In the next minute I went from hours of doing nothing to ten minutes of sitting in a big passenger van with six Japanese people and a load of equipment straight out of an ESPN trailer except there was no fridge. As we swerved along the pavement between the parallel snowdrifts I tried to glean from their scant conversation a clue of what was going on.

What was going on was a television show called  “Chiisana Tabi” (‘Little Trip’) that aired every Sunday morning. I had to admit to Sato-san, the director of the show, Yamada-san, the on-air hostess of the show, and all the others involved that I’d never seen it.

“But I’d like to check it out,” I added quickly. “I love visiting new places.”

Japanese people are very practiced at being polite while remaining utterly emotionless.

The sign up there basically says 'Don't Touch! This thing is frigging ancient
and will disintegrate under the slightest bit of pressure from your dirty gaijin paws."

The Gig Begins

There seemed no gadding about with celebrities in my immediate future, but hanging out with a camera crew is preferable to going home and folding the laundry so I decided to stick with them as we rolled through the narrow streets of the ski village. Our first stop: the front lobby/common area of a funky, richly-decorated Japanese-style hostel. Keeping watch over the front entrance were two samurai suits of armor. Complete with helmets and face masks, they sat upright on boxes and stared across the room with blank, hollow eyes. They seemed barely big enough for my nine-year-old son.

Behind them hung a white cloth covered with vertical lines of smeary, indecipherable Japanese writing. Above their helmets and all over the sitting room behind them the place looked like a museum for all things traditional Japan: paper lanterns, swords in glass casing, and origami in a dozen forms; statues of smiling, snarling creatures; prints of woodblock scenes of Edo Era life; silk cloth painted with wispy flowers and cranes and pine trees; more cryptic writing; and, of course, a coffee maker.

At a table a white guy in a white t-shirt sat in front of a spread of old newspapers and new white paper. In his hand was a calligraphy brush, tip dripping with black ink. He talked quietly and moved hesitantly as the Japanese woman looking over his shoulder guided his hand, coaxing out the complex Chinese character for ‘affectionate’.

He rolled his wary eyes back and forth, tossing out an occasional and quiet Japanese phrase. I assumed he was living and working in Japan as an English teacher. I thought back to when I was a newbie here, when my Japanese could hardly suck more. And I wondered why, in all the years I’d been here, I’d never learned how to write the Chinese character for affectionate.

While Sato-san and the camera crew held a whispering conversation about what the hell they were actually doing there I traded words with the white guy. Turns out he studied Japanese for a semester up north about ten years ago, and though this was his first time back since then his Japanese was easily good enough to make me useless.

I slowly sank into the background.

For half an hour he and two of his buddies, under the grandmotherly guidance of their instructor, tried their hand at writing their names in Chinese. For the next thirty or forty minutes a couple of their female friends giggled their way through a kimono-wearing session while two other guys from the group tried on the samurai armor, all the while arguing about who looked like Tom Cruise more. (It was a tie for last place.) And all the while I did nothing. For nearly two hours my only jobs were to stay out of camera shot and not fall asleep.

Okay, Sato-san did ask me to ask one girl if she had a boyfriend (strictly for programming purposes he said), and then later asked me to interview that same girl about her stay there at the Japanese hostel. Feeling like a dog finally let out of its cage I took off running with all kinds of questions, even as Sato-san slid behind the girl and began slicing his neck with his finger at me.

Sato-san wouldn’t ask me to do another interview the rest of the weekend.

But he would let me eat and sleep.

As we rolled back through the dark village Sato-san dialed up our hotel and asked for the manager. “We’re running a little late,” he said. Late for what I didn't know. Sato-boy had just told me we were done for the day. Not that I minded. Better to hang out in a hotel lobby doing nothing on my butt than hang around a hostel doing nothing on my feet.

Sato-director apologized again and said we’d be there soon. Then he told our van driver to head for the convenience store.

Is this what TV crews do when they’re running late? Stop at a convenience store? How many times did they come here in those four hours I was cursing the Wi-Fi and falling asleep in the hotel lobby?

We’d be eating dinner at the hotel, so there could only be one reason for this pit stop as far as I could imagine.

Beer!

It was all I could do to not jump out of the van ahead of everyone else and lead them like the Pie-eyed Piper to the coolers at the back. If this weren’t my first day on the job I might have. Instead I’d let Sato-san lead everyone over to the…

…cigarette case.

Sato-sober and a couple of the others stood outside, over near the recycling bins, chatting and blowing smoke like that “sorry we’re running late” phone call never even happened.

At the hotel I’d discover why Sato-smoker had made that phone call. The dining hall closed at eight, and if we missed dinner the crew might rise up against Sato-slow in a show of actual emotion. As it was, everyone maintained their flat-lining heartbeats and we filed in the half-closed door. The staff were eminently gracious as we descended like vultures on the remaining scraps scattered about the fourteen tables of entrees, rice, soups, side dishes, desserts and more entrees. Hunched over our plates at a long table in one corner of the room, we watched them as they began bringing more platters of scraps right to us. I say scraps, though this would be like saying the tails are the scraps of a tray of lobsters.

As our twenty-minute gorgefest wound down Sato-sushi-lover made an announcement.

“Meeting at 9pm in my room.”

For close to an hour I sat on one of my beds, fighting off my food coma, waiting for meeting time to roll around. At 8:55 I knocked on Sato-san’s door.

“Kebin-san! I’m sorry, you really don’t have to be here. Get a good night’s sleep and we’ll see you at breakfast. Come at 7am. Thank you for all your hard work today.”

Funny place, Japan.

With the walk to Sato-san’s room my food coma went into remission. So I was primed and ready for the second big event of the evening: bathing naked with strangers.

I generally don’t care for baths. I think they’re a waste of time. In and out of the shower leaves more time for writing inane blog posts and checking the news to see how much further our country has gone down the toilet in the last few hours. But a Japanese onsen is in no conceivable way a waste of time, and is even better than the occasional positive news story showcasing our country’s resilient buoyancy in the face of the big flush.

The main bath was deserted as a Chic-Fil-A stand at a gay pride picnic. The outdoor pool, long and stone-lined, was populated with two Japanese guys and me. I sat away from them, passively taking in their conversation and staring out at the black void beyond the miniature snowdrifts in front of me. Snow was falling in light flurries all around, passing the wisps of steam from the water as they descended. A mile away and two thousand meters up were those beautiful mountains, blanketed in snow and, now, darkness. I wanted to go to them. I wanted to walk in that black cold world, just for a while.

Sitting outside in that hot spring I felt like an animal must feel, warm despite the raw, cold wild. Even as I stood up, the 42-degree water only reaching my knees, I felt at home. I felt comfortable. No, more than that. I felt free. Strong. Like I could make more of an impact on this world than I ever before thought possible. I wanted to stay like that forever, standing naked out in the cold. Alive. Immune. Immortal.

Alas, the warmth and the strength I was feeling wouldn't last. Plus I didn't want the Japanese guys over there to think I was trying to show off.

For all I did and didn't do on this day, I slept like a wholly contented baby.

The view from my room at the Highland Hotel. On a day it isn't raining.

Day Two

Of course, even contented babies tend to wake up in the middle of the night. Especially when they’re afraid of oversleeping. It may be the fear of disappointing someone who has put their trust in me that keeps me awake on nights like this, but more likely it’s just a fear of missing the breakfast buffet.

We piled into the van at 7:30. Of course when I say ‘We’ I mean ‘I’. The others were already in their seats waiting. No one was talking much. They were all too busy looking out at the rain.

Yes, the ski capital of central Japan. Getting pounded with rain. In February.

Our first stop of the day was the same hostel I stood around in for two hours yesterday. Sato-director needed to film that all-important moment when the Australians said their good-byes to Mrs. Igarashi, the tiny, perky owner of this endearing repository of Japanese culture and hospitality.

Japanese people love long, drawn-out good-byes, at least on television. Today’s farewell would be a solid testament to that, as Sato-san had our Aussie friends perform their adieu routine twice, once with the film crew up close and once with them capturing the moment from fifteen yards away. Useless though it was for me to be anywhere near the action, I stood outside in the drizzle with the rest of my temporary colleagues. Which is a solid testament to my commitment to the Wa that holds this society together, even in the rain.

An Aussie I didn't remember seeing the previous evening came jogging around the corner and down the narrow street. “Come on, guys, the line for the bus is getting pretty long.”

Aussies gone, we went back inside. That takes care of that, I thought.

Wrong. We would spend another two hours there, Yamada-san prepping Mrs. Igarashi for an interview, then Mrs. Igarashi prepping herself for her interview, then the interview, then an inexplicable forty-five minutes of the crew filming Mrs. Igarashi as she sat at the table in the common area and read through a shoebox full of letters and notes from people who have stayed at her hostel over the years.

Forty. Five. Minutes.

I couldn't watch. So I walked off, to look around at the relics and artifacts that in sum were worthy of a modest admission fee. On the wall in the hallway, among a series of framed photos of generations past, hung a display of hair accessories that Mrs. Igarashi’s mother wore for her wedding ceremony sixty-five years prior. On the landing of the red-carpeted stairwell was a wooden chest from the end of the Edo Era (meaning before 1868). A chat with Mr. Igarashi at the office window in the lobby brought me face to face with a notebook one of the Igarashi ancestors used a full 200 years ago for a series of pilgrimages to the various mountain temples in the area. I held this notebook with nervous hands – and put it down so I wouldn't mar it with my sweaty fingerprints. This was the kind of thing Sato-san should have been focusing on, not whether or not a certain Australian girl had a boyfriend.

Despite our drawn-out stay at the Igarashi Inn, we still had a couple of hours to kill before our next scheduled stop. “Let’s go back to our rooms and relax,” Sato-slow suggested.

Even counting only my waking hours I was now spending more time in the hotel than out of it. The rain stopped and I went for a walk, down the hill to the icy river, then up the hill to a few sites of indigenous religious interest. I had another cup of green tea in my room. I sat in the lobby because sitting in a hotel room in the middle of the day feels weird to me, no matter what the weather. I took a walk up to the dining hall, just to see if anything was going on.

There wasn't. Lunch would be had at the convenience store. From there we’d head for the Hakuba Village bus terminal and visitor center. Finally? A chance to interpret for some interviews with a few visitors from abroad?

Nope. Today, half a dozen students from the local high school would be there passing out questionnaires and asking foreigners a few predetermined questions. My job would be to follow the camera crew and ask everyone (after being interviewed) if they had any objections to possibly appearing on Japanese TV.

One woman did. Good thing I was there.

200 year old notebook. Seriously.

The rain outside alternated between steady and pounding. Every twenty minutes another bus would pull up outside, first dumping off a puddle of snowboard-toting Australians who didn't seem to mind their shitty luck, then taking on a load of snowboard-toting Aussies who couldn't believe theirs.

My feet began to ache from all the standing around.

We didn't get out of there until almost 6:30. If you have any questions about the Hakuba Village bus terminal and visitor center fire away.

And that was it for the day…except for another stop at the convenience store. Were the guys out of cigarettes already? I hadn’t seen any of them smoke a single butt all day. Were we going to come to our collective senses and grab a few six-packs?

No one so much as glanced at those coolers back there, and I decided a career with NHK just wasn't for me.

On the way back to the hotel a couple of the crew felt inspired enough to have a conversation with me. Too bad for them their topic of choice was Trump. I have a hard enough time explaining the guy in English, forget about making sense of him to anyone in Japanese.

We had ample time for dinner tonight. Again I gorged myself silly. Only my third meal here and I could feel myself gaining weight. I wondered if the rest of these guys, having been filming here in Hakuba for a week already, had had to buy larger pants.

Again I was excused from Sato-san’s evening meeting. Again he thanked me for all my hard work and invited me to get some rest. I thanked him graciously, then stayed behind as everyone left so I could hit the coffee machine and the dessert rack. Then I asked one of the staff where I might be able to buy some bigger pants.

DAY THREE

Today, Sato-san had mentioned, we’d be outside a lot. So after breakfast I emptied my backpack on my bed and put on most of the clothing I brought: three layers of shirts; my rad snowboarding jacket; full-length cycling lycra leg things on underneath my thick, furry-on-the-inside snow pants; neck warmer, headband to cover the ears, and double-layer gloves. Bring on the sub-zero ski slopes of Hakuba, baby, I’m ready.

The van was a flipping oven.

We reached the slopes about 7:45. We reached one of the slopes anyway – Hakuba has seven different areas to ski. Looking around at the barren snowy landscape, it seemed we’d picked the slope people come to after the good ones get too crowded.

We walked around the parking area and hung out on the van in turns, getting cold and hot and cold and hot. At 8:15 Sato-san took a walk down to the next ski lift, a couple hundred meters away. By 8:30 we were all down there, scoping out our interview prey among the slowly increasing masses of mostly Australian folk.

I can hear the anticipation dripping from your eyeballs.

Yes! I got to do something! I got to ask people if they had a few minutes to spare for an interview. To those who said yes, I gave a briefing of the questions Yamada-san would be asking them, and then prepped them on the kinds of responses Sato-slick had already decided he wanted.

“Yeah, all right. No worries,” was the general response. Aussies are basically like that.

Stalking our interview prey.

One crucial element of the choreographed routine involved the interviewees using the term “J-pow” in their answers to Yamada-san’s questions. According to Sato-snow, J-pow was short for Japanese Powder, and was the term every Australian used to describe the wonderfully light and fluffy snow that fell on Hakuba each winter.

Most of the Australians we talked to had never heard the word.

I told them the term had more oomph if they used it while chucking handfuls of snow at each other on camera.

Sato-san loved it. I could feel my pay increasing.

After a couple hours of flying J-pow we needed to head for the slopes of Tsugaike, where one of the high school students from yesterday’s questionnaire session was working.

Tsugaike is on a completely different mountain from the Aussie-fest we’d just departed. As such, there were enough Japanese people on the slopes to make me remember we were in Japan. We rode a gondola with a few of them halfway up the mountain and did our best not to get plowed over by any wayward skiers as we trekked over to a mostly-empty cafeteria hall.

The lunch crowd hadn’t begun filtering in yet, and the few who were there were Japanese and therefore unqualified to give an interesting interview. Behind the counter was our girl from yesterday, looking pale and quite unhappy underneath a row of back-lit signs for ramen, fried chicken rice bowls and platters of curry and rice. Hopefully she’d look a bit more camera-ready when the Australian hordes descended. We were there, after all, to film her in action, to show everyone watching NHK all across Japan that it was indeed possible to interact with foreigners without turning pale and unhappy.

The manager of the place pointed us to the second floor, which was more like a loft, for Japanese people who didn't want to interact with foreigners during lunch. In one corner was a long counter (which might have reminded me of a bar if I could remember what beer was). Behind this unused counter was where we stashed all the equipment – and clothing – we didn't need for the moment. Even without any equipment, my pile was bigger than anyone else’s.

By the time the lunch crowd started showing up our feature girl had gone downstairs to a staff room, to sit on a chair and hang her head between her knees. So much for the country no longer looking pale and unhappy.

But look! Aussies! I jumped into action.

“Excuse me, guys? I’m with the camera crew, are you all okay with possibly appearing on a TV show here in Japan?”

None of them had any problem. A couple of them put on a show. Managing not to curse, I might add. Which for an Aussie is pretty impressive.

Done with the dining hall.

Back to the gondola and down the mountain, back through the ski village to a parking lot where we’d wait for our van. I wanted to ask Sato-son what was next on the agenda. But I didn't, fearing some weird lost-in-translation situation that would make me sound like I just wanted to get out of there.

Come to think of it, a little lost-in-translation would have come in handy. I actually was ready to get out of there. There would be no strolling around Hakuba with anyone famous. The work wasn't easy so much as stultifying. And while Sato-san and his crew were great (if quiet) people and being out there among the mountains of Hakuba was not the worst place I could find myself on any given day, this gig simply was not going to get any more interesting.

Plus I wasn't going to get any more free meals at the hotel.

So I was rather relieved when Sato-san, after flipping through his multi-page agenda, told me that they would be okay without my services from here on out.

“We will bring you to the hotel, you can get your bag, and the staff will call a taxi for you.”

Miss Deep Eyes would call a taxi for me, I hoped.

Before I jumped off the NHK van Sato-boss handed me a sheet of paper; a form that, when filled in, would tell someone in a dark cubicle back at NHK Headquarters how much money to transfer to my bank account. So far nothing was filled out.

“Just sign here and here. Oh and here.”

Even in Japan, these sound like ominous words.

The entire camera crew, to a man, had not shown nearly as much life these past 48 hours as they did when it was time to tell me good-bye. “Great working with you, hope we get to do it again!”

Right. They’d probably already forgotten my name.

Which was fine, I’d already forgotten theirs too.

Two weeks later I got a letter from Sato-san, asking me to write my name and address on an enclosed form and send it back to him. Ten days after that I got another letter, asking me to fill out the same form a little differently and send that back to him too. Middle of the next month I got a bank transfer notice from NHK.

Sato-sama had decided to give me a raise.

“For all your hard work,” he said in a note at the bottom.

Funny country, Japan.