Lost in Translation

I am lucky enough to travel to Tokyo each year to represent my Japanese company at a conference. This year, I thought I would be frugal and stay at the hotel booked by our head office at a discount rate. Unfortunately (or not), a few weeks before I left, I was told that they couldn’t accommodate my dates so I had to find an alternative place to stay.

Many of my colleagues were staying at the prestigious Palace Hotel so I decided to join them. Given the last-minute nature of my enquiry, I could only get a twin room with a balcony and a view of the Imperial Palace and gardens. I forgot all thoughts of saving the company some pennies and quickly accepted.

I have four sisters and was supposed to travel with one of them to the Tokyo Olympics to support one of my daughters who was competing there in 2020 (she eventually medalled but with no spectators). Because of Covid-19, we were forced to cancel and were extremely disappointed. Many of my colleagues take their partners to the conference and because I now had a very nice twin room in a beautiful hotel, I asked Alison if she would like to join me. To her credit, she didn’t hesitate and with a week to go, had booked her flight.

Alison has been a vegetarian ever since, at the age of six, when the teacher put a picture of a cow, sheep and chicken on the blackboard and explained that this is where meat comes from. She is extremely principled and hasn’t wavered to this day and even though she won’t admit it, is edging towards veganism. Growing up this was hard for her but nowadays she has a lot more choice and respect. We didn’t feel this would be a problem in Tokyo, being a cosmopolitan city. What could have been a problem was her severe allergy to fish, especially shellfish, given that many Japanese dishes are based on a fish stock.

I discussed this with one of my Japanese, bilingual colleagues who recommended that we stick to vegetarian sushi or western restaurants, which would have been a pity but very sensible. My colleague very kindly translated a message into Japanese explaining Alison’s situation, which we printed and took with us. We are so used to being asked in the UK if we have any allergies that it seemed intrusive to stop waiters in their stride to discuss one, especially when we were with a crowd. We found ourselves shoving our translated, by now grubby, piece of paper under their nose, hoping they would take notice.

This worked well until we took a day trip to Kyoto and had lunch in a typical Japanese restaurant on the outskirts of town that served a noodle dish called ramen. I think the restaurants are called ramen-ya. It looks as if you’re going into someone’s home as you enter a small door with a curtain, or noren, blocking the top. Apparently the Japanese didn't really have any means of closing their windows (glass wasn't a thing and paper is expensive) so they made noren to act as window or door covers. They also mean that you have to bow as you enter, which I’m sure is deliberate.

Anyhow, after being greeted effusively by the people working there in the smallest kitchen I have ever seen in a restaurant and taking our shoes off, we sat down at a table with chairs, rejecting the offer to eat crouching on the floor. A couple of members of our party did kneel down to eat which was very impressive, but I did notice they could hardly walk for the rest of the day. No English was spoken by the staff so there was lots of bowing and smiling. We showed them the translated allergy message but I feel they didn’t really read it. There were no menus and we were all brought a traditional noodle dish which was steaming as it was freshly made. Alison double checked by miming “no fish” and “it could make me ill” (don’t ask how that looked) to receive more smiling and bowing. Just as she was about to eat the dish, I said no, better not, and I’m glad I did, as I’m pretty sure the soup was based on a fish stock.

It was still a lovely meal and a super trip but it could have gone so wrong. Alison is off to Vietnam in March and I know she is a little anxious about falling ill. Hopefully by then her miming skills will have improved!