21 Comments

1. yama-arashi:

Nissan’s Ghosn is another recent examples. He’s had much success. Do American companies usual have foreign heads?

Mar 7, 2005 - 11:49 am 2. yama-arashi:

example

Mar 7, 2005 - 12:00 pm 3. Morgan:

yama-arashi:

Not usually, but more and more often.

…a virtual melting pot of CEOs across the U.S. corporate workplace: Pharmacia president and CEO Fred Hassan hails from Pakistan. Alcoa boasts a Moroccan CEO, as does Eli Lilly. In fact, 11 of that drug maker?s top 22 executives are foreign-born. NCR, Coca-Cola, Goodyear, Kellogg, and Philip Morris are only a few of the many other leading American corporations with foreign-born bosses.

http://www.chiefexecutive.net/depts/careermanagement/174.htm

Mar 7, 2005 - 12:21 pm 4. yama-arashi:

Morgan,

Thanks for the link! Companies like Alcoa and Sony, Nissan and all the rest, it is diffficult to think of them in old terms. If you buy a Toyota in America it is likely made by Americans with as much of or even a larger percentage of American parts than a car made by the Big Three. Buy American to save American jobs! can very well mean buy a Toyota. As you can probably tell I don’t much like the Japan the xenophobic meme (not to imply this is what Roger was implying). But that is a long, long story. Anyway, are there any examples of an American company headed by a foreigner who can’t speak, read, nor write English?

Mar 7, 2005 - 12:44 pm 5. Morgan:

“…are there any examples of an American company headed by a foreigner who can’t speak, read, nor write English?”

I honestly doubt it. What would the common language be? Everything would need to go through interpreters – that might be possible, but it seems highly impractical.

“Japan the Xenophobic” may be an outmoded idea, but “America the Monolingual” is as true as ever.

English is apparently becoming the lingua franca of international business, which is lucky for me. My Spanish will get me as far as “The vacuum cleaner is in the kitchen”, and my Japanese only extends to “Thank you very much, Mr. Roboto”. Oh, and “Mountain Storm”.

Mar 7, 2005 - 1:06 pm 6. yama-arashi:

Morgan,

“Mountain Storm.” I’m impressed. It isn’t quite as simple as that, but you are in the ballpark. I’d tell you the name of the book in which this character appears, but I wouldn’t want you wasting your time reading a truly terrible translation. Sad, any book worth translating from Japanese into English, is impossible to sufficiently translate. All the other books–why read? There are plenty of mediocre books in English to waste your time on. It is a good book, though, portraying the eternal struggle between the Havels of this world and the Zapateros. The Zapateros represented by the deliciously nicknamed character “Red Shirt.” Well I hope the new CEO of Sony does well, though because he doesn’t know Japanese at all, it is, as you say, “highly impractical.” But Gnosh has done very well at Nissan. And he’s a French guy speaking English and also doesn’t know Japanese. In a way not knowing the language can have advantages. Everyone gets the message. Bush doesn’t know English, and repeats the same simple phrases over and over, and look how many people are out raising a ruckus for freedom. I’d take a bullet for the guy. Kerry, on the other hand, I am told speaks and thinks brilliantly, but……

Mar 7, 2005 - 2:00 pm 7. Stankleberry:

I know how to say “cat’s balls” in Japanese. Neko no keentama.

Mar 7, 2005 - 2:48 pm 8. yama-arashi:

Stankleberry,

Only a very small mistake. Of course kanji and kana are always preferred. And heck being able to say “cat’s balls” like you almost can, I wouldn’t be surprised if you’re the next CEO of Toyota.

Mar 7, 2005 - 3:13 pm 9. Old Grouch:

By acquiring properties such as Columbia Records (and now Bertelsmann’s music operations– the former RCA Records!) and M-G-M, Sony has moved away from pure technology:

Howard’s hand has been strengthened by the strong performance of Sony’s entertainment businesses, which now account for about half the company’s net income.

The electronics part of the company has been under pressure for some time due to Chinese and south Asian price competition. (Sony closed its last Trinitron picture tube plant last year.)Traditionally Sony has been engineering-driven (much as Hewlett-Packard USED to be), noted for excellence in technology, but also an arrogance about that excellence that often made the company hard to deal with. (The Betamax fiasco is the canonical example of Sony’s stubbornness– or misunderstanding of the market– ultimately hurting the company). In recent years, Sony hasn’t been much of an innovator in the consumer electronics area (except gaming), and has missed some opportunities. (Example: Sony, despite already owning a record company, let Apple get the jump on them with iTunes/iPod.)It looks to me like this is the start of a move to transform Sony into a media/entertainment company: Note that

[the] vice president and chief financial officer, will remain CFO [while assuming] responsibility for the home electronics business.

which smells to me of cost-cutting and downsizing in that area, and

…the retirement of seven out of eight board members who are Sony officials [including the guy who is behind the company's PlayStation success- Ed.], leaving eight external directors… outnumbering the three Sony officials remaining on the board.

looks like a purge of the engineers. Stringer is a showbiz guy who doesn’t appear to have any technical background. Again, Hewlett-Packard comes to mind: Will he succeed in transforming Sony, or will he wind up being another Carly Fiorina?

Mar 7, 2005 - 4:29 pm 10. someone:

He’s a software guy. This smells like a bad idea for a company that really depends on its brand dominance in the console gaming market.

Mar 7, 2005 - 5:09 pm 11. Sandy P:

Good Lord, did we ever think we’d live to see the day?

And what just happened to the comments???

I’ve got some funky stuff on my screen.

Mar 7, 2005 - 5:42 pm 12. Sandy P:

–”The vacuum cleaner is in the kitchen”, and my Japanese only extends to “Thank you very much, Mr. Roboto”. Oh, and “Mountain Storm”.–

Don’t forget “Shogun.”

Hi!

Mar 7, 2005 - 5:43 pm 13. Sandy P:

My husband dove Chuuk – one of the Japanese ships was the San Francisco.

Mar 7, 2005 - 5:46 pm 14. Morgan:

Yama-arashi:

Don’t be impressed. My “Mountain Storm” translation came via google. Apparently it is a technique in various martial arts, and martial artists like to show off their translation skills.

Still, a translation via google is better than no translation at all. Maybe.

I’m wandering off-topic now (was I ever on?), but I wonder if translations between related languages work better than those between unrelated (or more distantly related) ones. It seems that both words and the shapes of the concepts behind them might differ more between Japanese and English than between Spanish and Italian, for example. That would complicate translation, I imagine.

Mar 7, 2005 - 6:21 pm 15. Pat Curley:

I assume the hot-selling management books in Japan are now all about American techniques?

Mar 7, 2005 - 6:37 pm 16. yama-arashi:

Morgan,

Yamaarashi: it could mean a porcupine, or a hedgehog, if written with one set of Kanji, and with another set of kanji it means a strong (very, very strong even) wind blowing in (or down from) a mountain (or mountains), not really a storm, but it has come to encompass that meaning as well as a number of other meanings. It is also used as a name for a particular move in Judo. If I am not mistaken. Don’t have the dictionary with me and no time to attempt a Safire. I think what you say about translating amongst langauges of the same family and between languages of different families is very true. I am not a particularly fan of translations. A necessary evil at best. When reading a translation, especially between languages of different families, you should be very skeptical. It would be a great mistake, say, to read Tale of Genji in English and presume you have read the Tale of Genji. Translators, especially these days, are often ideologically driven and incompetent.

Sandy P,

Wasn’t Shogun some t.v. series or book? It seems to me that it was.

Mar 7, 2005 - 6:57 pm 17. Vexorg:

For some reason, I’m reminded of this Dave Barry piece which has been floating around for ages now:

http://www.mlcsmith.com/humor/read_this/

Mar 7, 2005 - 11:38 pm 18. Morgan:

Yama-arashi:

It sounds like the “wind” meaning of yamaarashi is the same as a “katabatic wind” – like the mistral (”master wind”) that blows off the mountains through Provencal, France. That leaves the porcupine/hedgehog meanings untouched, though the mistral does roll off the mountain like a trillion balled porcupines.

I am pleased that I do not make my living as a translator.

Mar 8, 2005 - 7:22 am 19. Morgan:

Vexorg:

Thanks for the link. I laughed out loud.

Mar 8, 2005 - 7:23 am 20. yama-arashi:

Vexorg,

Very funny.

Mar 8, 2005 - 12:45 pm 21. yama-arashi:

Morgan,

Katabatic–Yea, I learned a new word today.

As far as doing translations, I can’t think of anything I would rather not do. Though some people seem to enjoy the work.

Mar 8, 2005 - 12:48 pm

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