English Is Important, Isn’t It?

These days, many visitors from overseas come to Japan and enjoy all that the country has to offer.

Partly thanks to Paolo’s YouTube channel, many tourists also come to Yahata Sushi to dine.

When guests speak Japanese, we serve them in Japanese, but otherwise we basically assist them in English.

Kitajima and Yuya can both hold simple conversations well enough, and since most of our part-time staff are Waseda University students, they have no trouble speaking English either.

Kitajima was shy at first as well, but I taught him that the idea of being embarrassed is nothing more than an illusion we create in our own minds, and that it has nothing to do with the other person—so he should simply forget about being shy. These days, he seems to speak proactively.

As for the fifth-generation owner’s English, I do not worry about grammar or anything overly formal.

My belief is that communicating is what matters most, so whenever I have the opportunity, I make a point of speaking as much as I can.

What matters is the willingness to talk, and a smile, perhaps.

In the first place, what sparked my interest in English was joining my high school’s English club at the invitation of a friend when I was in my second year.

There, I spoke with an American woman who came in from outside to teach us, and it was my first-ever conversation with a foreigner.

The very first thing she asked me was, “How old are you?” But I misheard it as “How are you?” and replied, “I’m fine, thank you!” (I still cannot forget how embarrassed I was then!)

From then on, every day when I came home from school, I made a habit of turning on FEN, the only English-language radio broadcast available in Japan.

Eurobeat was popular in Western music at just that time, and perhaps being constantly exposed to that kind of music was educational as well.

Not Eurobeat, but I would copy out the lyrics of songs by artists I liked, such as Billy Joel and Chicago, over and over on rough paper until I had memorized them.

But more than anything, my motivation was simply that I wanted to talk with that woman teacher (my ulterior motives were quite obvious).

She was also a pastor, so even though I was not a Christian, I would go to church on Sundays.

To tell the truth, my goal was to ask her out on a date, but my hastily acquired English was nowhere near enough to make that happen (laughs).

Ah, this is a secret!

Putting silly jokes aside, what I feel from interacting with guests from overseas every day is that English education should place much, much more emphasis on communication as well.

If we could raise the overall language ability of Japanese people, myself included, I think we could share Japan’s appeal even more widely with visitors to Japan and with people overseas, and in doing so, increase the number of people who feel warmly toward Japan.

It may sound presumptuous, but I see the sushi counter as a small yet grassroots stage for diplomacy.

Though my efforts may be modest, I will continue to work hard so that I can share the wonderful things about Japan.