I have always had an admiration for the immigrants that come to America and become fluent in another language and culture. Yes you need to speak and understand them. It is not enough to know a language you must understand the people that it comes from.
I started just like anyone else in high school I studied French. Now granted I didn't study that hard and it did not fascinate me YET. In college I first took Spanish. Of course Col. Pappas was amused he said I spoke Spanish with a French accent. Hey they are both romance languages.
OK now lets jump ahead. I went to work for a Japanese family back in the late eighties. Well, in order to be a manager and direct in this company you guessed it you had to understand and speak the language. I mean when you call the owner's home and the mother answers she did not speak any English so if she heard anything but, Japanese she would hang up!
OK another leap, I use to be in corporate America to. I worked my way up in a national company to Divisional Purchasing Manager Textiles. So as you may guess we don't make that many of our own textiles. This was also in the prime age of the low cost Chinese imports. Now I did bring many products back domestically that were being outsourced to Pakistan and India. But the non-woven products I had to buy from alot of different sources. So a eager new manager (me) and a hard working associate from Taiwan began an online search for sources. I began the dialog and then she would help with the translation. Well I got tired of having to rely on her so much so yes I started studying Mandarin on my own.
Now the newest chapter I have as of late been working with an number of clients from Thailand. I actually have a Buddhist monk that calls me all the time that I help and he refers me to different clients. I have learned a great deal from Somsak and the culture always fascinates me. I am going to start studying Thai next week. I spent this afternoon with Somsak and two new potential clients. I just helped his brother purchase a home that took a good amount of work. It is fascinating though that Somsak has his temple and about 4 acres with two homes on them. The culture is for many people to move close to the temple. That way as the older generation becomes less able to take care of themselves the monks come and help take care of them. It is as I said a fascinating culture.
SO DON'T JUST LEARN TO SPEAK LEARN TO UNDERSTAND!
