I had a “friend” who I thought was really smart at one time. Both of us liked Japanese pop culture. When I was struggling with the university entrance examination, he went to Maryland. Before his departure, I asked him why he didn’t choose Japan. He said he could go to Japan whenever he wanted if he got a green card. I thought he was no more than an opportunist. Now I realized he had a point.
Last week, my supervisor gave me a bizarre instruction. He is requiring me to give an English presentation about some industry news. I immediately showed my negative attitude about this requirement. I told him it was meaningless because I was not an English native. For this simple reason, even if I give this presentation, it would not help everyone’s English ability, I added. However, he insisted that I do it.
Let’s talk about the elephant in the room. I believe my company didn’t really want me but a real English native who can speak Japanese and occasionally have a decent degree. Unfortunately, either such kind of person is extremely difficult to find or they are normally not willing to come to this company. Instead, they hired me and put almost ridiculous expectations on me. To be honest, it is already a miracle for people like me to use English functionally. Somehow they hold an illusion as if I was grown up in an English-speaking environment and it is natural for me to speak English.
What’s more, why does our company and even society push everyone to study English so progressively in the first place? Despite over half of the sales coming from the US and we also have a huge amount of American employees from multiple M&As, there are only a dozen people in the Japan HQ who actually need to understand English on a daily basis. English is useless for most of us on a practical level. English ability is more like a kind of decoration or status like Rolex and Porsche. People with a high English language ability are considered smarter and more persuasive than those who aren’t. Literally everyone around me showed a desire to be able to use English freely and the target TOEIC score they want to get.
I truly feel sorry about the fact I am neither an English native nor having experience in living in an English-speaking country. At some point, I will definitely let them down. Maybe the best scenario was having an American bachelor’s degree before moving to Japan, but it was impossible. I still think it is a stupid idea to have English presentations without actual necessity though I will try my best to meet their needs. At the end of day, it’s just work.