I believe this is a topic I can get help for from this group:
It is a difficult problem and we (other people in my lab and I) are stumped.
We have a post-doc in the lab from Japan who speaks English very poorly. When
this post-doc interviewed our P.I. apparently did not pick up on how bad
her English was---and even though I ( and others) told him, he took her in
to this lab because she gave a really good talk. She seems to me to be a
really sweet person and
when she first got here she always said hello and was unfailingly cheerful
and upbeat. She giggled alot and seemed to try to communicate. She took
an intensive English course (though her visa restricted how much of it she
was able to take)...but it hasn't helped much and because she is too
embarrassed to speak to people, the situation has not improved at all.
Lately, what with attending meetings and going to seminars and lab
meetings, and what with her own work not going well at all, she has become
completely withdrawn and sullen. She speaks to no one. No longer says
hello. I try every day to get her to talk and she absolutely refuses.
She no longer smiles, she never giggles anymore. She never contributes
anything to lab meetings or to any conversation whatsoever. I know it is
because she can't understand anything. It is not even a matter of not
being able to express herself, she is not able to take anything in. She
and I share an office and this is becoming oppresively tense and unhappy.
Another post-doc in the lab and I have been discussing this. I would like
to help her get over this. The other post-doc has completely lost
patience, and believes that she is being a basically, a big spoiled baby
for not trying harder. We have no idea what is the cultural norm in Japan
for women in science. When the Japanese post-doc DID communicate early
on, she rarely used words---she grunted and groaned and sighed alot,
moaned, etc., and a Chinese friend of mine who spoke Japanese fluently
(but who has now left) said that this is a very typically Japanese way for
women to communicate there. Without even little pieces of knowledge like
that, we have no way of knowing how she perceives things, or what she is
thinking, or how to proceed or anything else.
So my question to this group is: does anyone have any information on the
social and cultural practices in Japan that might relate to this
situation? Has anyone else had any experience with post-docs coming here
from japan and how did they most effectively over-come the language
obstacles? I am told the Japanese to English transition is one of the
hardest because there is a much smaller array of sounds in Japanese than
in English and so a Japanese speaker hears fewer sounds and can duplicate
fewer.
I cannot even imagine how hard this must all be for her. I believe that
if nothing is done, she will go back to Japan and feel she failed. I
would hate to have it be because she felt she got no help or support
here---something that wouldn't be true, of course; everyone has been
unfailingly nice. But we're running out of ideas....
Alice
