Traveling to Japan highlighted the importance of having a trusted guide to navigate unfamiliar languages and systems, a role financial advisers mirror when translating complex financial jargon for their clients.
When we are in conversation with clients the compass generally swings straight to the magnetic topic of travel. This year the hottest destination was undoubtedly Japan. In part that was due to the favourable exchange rate which made the journey less expensive than travelling to Europe or the USA. As if to confirm the migratory godwit instinct to travel, four of our own team journeyed to Japan also.
Susanna was one of the travellers, and she and her partner spent a month exploring the Southern regions like Kyushu and staying clear of the heavily touristed spots they had visited in 2018. Their itinerary was light on temples and the amazing hubbub of Tokyo.
Says Susanna,
“The journey took us to Hiroshima and Nagasaki to pay respects to the atom bomb victims. The stories told in the memorial museums were very moving and left an indelible sense of horror. It was clear from the number of school children at these sites that the lessons from history are very much part of their civic studies. Here, of course, the signs were in multiple languages.
Because our travel plans took us to less touristy places, there was noticeably less English either spoken or in the signage. In that respect the language barrier was higher than we’d previously experienced in Europe or in the big Asian cities. We kiwis tend to believe that everyone speaks English.
Our lack of Japanese fluency was evident in museums and galleries where captions were written solely in Japanese. We saw exhibits but unlike the displays in Hiroshima we missed the story.
Or take the hotels. Here the washing machines, air-conditioning, the uniquely Japanese hot water kettles as well as the state-of-the-art toilets required guesswork and experimentation. What did the buttons mean?
We found ourselves and shop staff increasingly reliant on GoogleTranslate as well as the translation app that let us take a scan of a menu in Japanese and in an instant, see the English translation. That way we avoided certain foods that challenged our love of all things Japanese:the dishes of raw chicken sashimi, horse meat, or – least appealing of them all – the dishes of live squid.
Not all translations were 100% accurate. A cough syrup sparked a warning: “type of flame medicine that can be drunk without water.” And during one of the aircon struggles the app translator cautioned us that we were approaching a “fart temperature.” We stopped pushing the buttons after that.
Towards the end of the trip, we met up with Yoko, our Japanese sister-in-law who happened to be in Japan at the time. This was in the last stage of our journey and by now my partner had come down with a crippling dose of flu. It was such a relief to have Yoko translate when we went tosee a doctor.
And here’s the thing. That feeling of being able to have a local guide us through some gnarly translation moments was a source of joy. Knowing which places are “safe” to eat at. Having a guide to take us through the marvellous art gallery in Ito. All this made me think of how some clients, for whom money matters and investments are a foreign language, must feel when confronted by the jargon and terminology of the financial world.”
Whether travelling or dealing with financial issues we can often feel out of our comfort zone. What a difference it makes to have someone trustworthy to translate everything and to help navigate the more esoteric and foreign layers of tax regulations, AML, and investment options. A note to our team: We are not just advisers; we are also translators.
Don’t hesitate to ask us if you don’t fully understand the terminology we use. We are your go-to financial translation app. And good news for the squeamish: we know the difference between saving up a few quid versus serving up live squid.
