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JAT member David Atwool interviewed Bruce Holcombe for the JAT website. Over more than 20 years in Japan, Bruce has worked both as an interpreter and a translator. He also founded his own company, Lexis, Inc.
I was sent to Japan by the Australian government in 1980 to train as a simultaneous interpreter at Simul Academy. That wasn't my first visit, however. I had studied languages at university, majoring in Indonesian, and came to Japan for a year in 1973 on a scholarship. In 1978-79, I was back doing research on Japanese semantics for a post-graduate degree in linguistics.
When I completed that degree, I was intending to embark on an academic career and had in fact been offered a lecturing position at an Australian university. Just then, however, the opportunity to train as an interpreter came up. Faced with the choice of sitting at a university outside Japan and "playing" at Japanese, or actually coming here and "living" Japanese, the latter option was overwhelmingly attractive.
At that time I was 30, rather late in life to start interpreting. A few people were dubious that I'd be able to do it, but thankfully I've proved them wrong. While taking the interpreting course at Simul, I was asked to start teaching interpreting, mainly because I already had teaching experience. I had also done a certain amount of interpreting, although not a lot. Gradually I started picking up freelance clients. I ended up being in charge of the whole curriculum for the interpreting course at Simul until I started Lexis in 1985.
I didn't have any ambition to go into business. I got offered a big job by a client I had worked with before, but their internal rules didn't allow them to use an individual. It had to be a company versus company transaction. Anyone with more sense would have made do with a little 有限会社(limited company). Unfortunately I jumped in headfirst and formed a 株式会社 (corporation), which at its peak had 14 staff. Looking back over the years, I probably would have made more money by remaining freelance. But the experience you gain means you can't evaluate things entirely in terms of money. Running my own company gave me the chance to get involved in consulting and in design work, for example.
I've always maintained a philosophy of wanting to have direct clients. So we started off with a small number of clients inherited from my freelance activities and went out to try and build a wider clientele. At that time, a lot of our efforts were directed at government departments like the Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and MITI. We started doing a lot of work for JICA. Then we got private clients as well. Around 1990, I decided that we should really offer not just language services, but a comprehensive package including design, layout, and printing.
However, in about 1998 the consumption tax went up and there was a real slowdown in the economy. The Internet began to bite and competition heightened in the area of layout and design. So we downsized that part of the business and in the last few years we have gone back to being a smaller operation.
In the present environment you have to be highly specialized - that is, if you want to be able to maintain prices. Early on in my career I didn't worry too much about specializing. These days, we are very, very specialized in finance and litigation. We focus on the interface between finance and the law with jobs involving distressed assets or M & A, for example.
I think pharmaceuticals and medicine are other recession-proof fields, and I'd like to get more involved in those areas. I have recently been undergoing chemotherapy for cancer and found I was learning a lot of new terminology, so I have a personal interest, too.
We still do work for the ministries, as well as finance companies and the Bank of Japan. We are increasingly developing a law office clientele. The law offices are interesting, because they are very demanding, particularly in terms of deadlines. A case comes along and suddenly there are boxes and boxes of materials that have to be triaged or translated. Just last week I was asked to translate fifty pages in two days on a very complex subject. A lot of legal work is highly confidential, so you really have to build a relationship of trust.
Definitely deposition interpreting. I have realized that there is an overlap between what lawyers do and what translators and interpreters do. Basically the lawyer's major tool is words, and that's where we come from too. It's fascinating when you start doing deposition interpreting, because there is another person on the other side of the table who is there specifically to check your interpreting. It's the only interpreting situation I know where you can be challenged, and where you actually have an opportunity to explain why you interpreted one particular word or sentence in a particular way. It's quite adversarial and the lawyers can get rather nasty with each other. Some interpreters don't like the notion of having someone on the other side who may find fault with their interpretation. I actually enjoy it very much, because it's the most demanding form of interpreting, in the sense that there's a need for absolute precision. The work ranges from patent infringements - which can get very dry - to large distressed asset cases. There's a lot of human drama.
The other interesting thing about deposition interpreting is that the client's real interest is in the English output. How many interpreters are there in Japan who speak English as a native language? Of course there are some native-speakers of Japanese who are almost perfectly bilingual. But overall, there are very, very few people who can provide this service to American lawyers. It's a niche that I actually enjoy, and an area where I have a perceived advantage over, say, an interpreter who is a native speaker of Japanese.
Deposition interpreting is also a growing field. In the old days, Japanese companies were loath to get involved in litigation, but that's not the case any more.
There are two types of people who do this type of legal/finance work. One is the people who actually have a law degree but for various reasons have not entered the legal profession and decided to work as legal translators. Then there are the others like myself who just pick it up as we go along. I've never studied law. Deposition interpreting is not about the law itself. It's about a particular patent or a particular case involving a dispute over property or whatever. But you do have to know quite an amount of legal terminology. I picked up most of that by actually doing the work.
Through my work in deposition interpreting, I've become very well known in Guam and Saipan because one of the large cases I was involved with was about property in Guam. So from time to time I interpret for the courts down there.
It's also worth noting that there is a growing amount of translation work involving the kind of large cases I work on. If the yen weakens, the M & A cycle will likely pick up again. When deals are being done, then this kind of work gets generated - either interpreting for negotiations on the deals or translating documents related to them.
Like a lot of people in this business, I get referred to clients. It's not so easy to go out and cold-call. I get referred by lawyers who know me and have worked with me, and my trust with that particular client is passed on to the next client. Often what happens in deposition interpreting is that the other side of the table comes over and asks for your card, and you can expand the business that way.
In the old days I used to make an effort to go out and create clients - not exactly cold-calling, but something fairly close. For instance, I read in the newspaper that the Japan Racing Association (JRA) was setting up a separate organization to handle their international affairs. Since horseracing is a hobby of mine, I contacted someone who knew someone, and got an introduction. We ended up producing a newsletter for the JRA for many years. Now I am specifically targeting introductions to law firms.
I think a lot of translators aren't really "naturals" when it comes to selling their services. Over the years we have used dozens and dozens of translators as a company. Very few of them have ever seen me as the client, although in fact I am their client for that particular job. It's always surprised me that they wouldn't call our account managers from time to time just to pass the time of day and say, "if you've got a job sometime I'm available." It's just not in their nature, and yet to do that is enormously effective.
From here on, when the pie is getting smaller, Japan is in dire economic straits, and there is growing competition, I think they are going to have to learn. It goes without saying that, in that context, you really have to specialize. Whether you present yourself as an expert in marketing translation or pharmaceutical translation, specialization means you can do the work more quickly. From the client's point of view, it means they can rest easy knowing they have someone who actually understands the field, rather than someone who is just looking in dictionaries.
Certainly interpreters who will do anything have been the norm. I think it is becoming more important for them to specialize, too. The world is becoming more and more complex. The situations in which clients will use interpreters are becoming more sophisticated. Twenty years ago an interpreter would be called in to interpret a courtesy call. Now the client is more likely to haul someone out of the sales department to do that kind of thing.
Interpreting resembles swimming in one aspect. As with swimming, one should get some training in the basics. However, sitting beside the pool and practicing strokes won't teach you how to really swim. Unless you actually dive in, you won't get the intense training that you need. One way of "diving in" to interpreting is to volunteer to interpret for NGOs.
Many of the people who came to Japan after me disappeared into the finance industry during the bubble years. Also, other interpreters don't always make it easy for newcomers, so I think some promising people get discouraged and leave the business. The situation really should be remedied; the normal state of affairs in Europe is to interpret into your native language, but I don't see any quick solution.
Yes. In fact, I like the type of translation that is closest to interpreting - that is, when someone rings up at two o'clock and says, "we need these eight pages done by four o'clock." In those cases I can forge ahead with it as though I'm interpreting. I think to some extent interpreters and translators have different personalities. My impression is that translators tend to be more scholarly and enjoy getting involved in the arcane terminology of their fields and the knowledge that is required. Interpreters are much more outgoing and enjoy the cut and thrust that occurs on the spot with clients. I really like the time pressure of interpreting. When I translate, I'm a bad translator in the sense that I don't do a rough draft - I have to try and get everything right the first time. I suspect interpreting interferes with the way I translate.
Not these days, although I do recall being completely wiped out by my very first interpreting job many years ago. Unfortunately, because of the difficult economic situation, the conditions under which interpreters work are changing. For example, clients now often ask a single interpreter to do work that would normally be done by a team of two. Against my will, I have interpreted for the courts all day on my own. Realizing how important the statements made by the witnesses are, this can be very demanding. Any mistake you make could have an adverse affect on the case, which is quite a responsibility.
You have to insist that the client gives you breaks. With interpreting, the better you do the job, the more likely you are to be mistreated. Unless you put your hand up and say, "I need a ten-minute break," you are unlikely to get it. A bad interpreter is so obvious that the client realizes they need a break!
I had to interpret for an event being attended by Masako-san. The imperial household people briefed me very carefully before the job on the correct way to address her - a long and involved title. It was all new to me, but I took everything down. Unfortunately, this was shortly after her marriage to the crown prince and the newspapers were full of headlines referring to her as "Masako-san." So when the time came for the speaker to address her, the only words that would come to mind were "Masako-san," and that's what came out of my mouth. After the job was finished I went up to her and apologized, and she very kindly told me not to worry about it.
I had a different kind of embarrassing moment one day when I'd had a heavy cold. I woke up in time to go to an interpreting job, but - without realizing it - went back to sleep for an hour. I went off to the job quite oblivious to the fact that I was running an hour late. When I arrived everyone was seated around the table talking, so I sat down and started doing the job. No one commented on this, so I didn't find out until lunchtime that I had stepped in an hour late. They had frantically been phoning my office to find out where I was.
I did several volunteer jobs in 1995 for a large AIDS conference here in Japan. I was interpreting for three HIV-positive women up on stage in front of an audience. Since there was a lot of talk about the intricacies of having safe sex, it offered some interesting interpreting challenges. They were very frank about their situation, and the job was highly satisfying.
Another job that sticks in my memory is interpreting for the philosopher Karl Popper. He had just won the Inamori Foundation Prize and I was interpreting at his press interviews. He had an amazing mind. He spoke in very long sentences and paragraphs - every word was perfect. It was fascinating to interpret for him. Then at the end of the interviews, he turned to me and said, "Bruce, what you do is amazing!" How can you respond to that?
First, one should differentiate between people who want to set up a company for tax reasons and people who want to expand their business and farm out work to others. For the latter, my view is that translators should set themselves up like legal offices. I've always thought that is the perfect set-up for a language services company. You can share back-up staff, clients, companionship, and knowledge while presenting the company as a very professional entity. You could even include interpreters or editors. People would buy in as senior partners or junior partners or be taken on as junior staff to start with. I would envisage partner A having a practice in pharmaceuticals and medicine, while partner B had a practice in finance. You would present yourselves to clients this way, just like lawyers. The problem is that partnerships often involve enormous friction because of differing personalities. But if that hurdle can be overcome, it would be the ideal set-up. It reduces the financial risk and utilizes the resources of an office more efficiently. The key person would be the office manager, who is not a translator or an interpreter.
The biggest change with translation has been the transition from hand-delivered text, to fax, to e-mail. The single greatest effect of this change has been increasing demand for quick turnover. Sometimes it's frightening how fast we have to produce a translation for clients.
As I mentioned earlier, there is a growing need for specialization. There will be fewer "easy" jobs and more complex jobs.
As with most things in Japan in the year 2002, reading the industry is headed is extremely difficult. It's difficult to make big decisions in this environment. I think translators based in Japan have an advantage, in that they are closer to the clients. These days, when the pie is getting smaller, having direct contact as often as possible with your clients is very important.
I'm not really interested in building my business back up to the point of having a dozen or more employees. That would mean going back to spending large amounts of time managing the business, whereas I think I'm much better employed doing the jobs. The idea of the partnership set-up we talked about earlier fascinates me, so if a dedicated, committed partner comes along - and for my first partner I think I'd be looking for a translator - I'd consider that. I already have the office, the clients, and a brilliant office manager, so it wouldn't be too difficult to set up. Or I may just continue on a stand-alone basis. I've already decided to take this year to think about these issues.