WIT Life #4 – Airport security and death row
Career, Translating/Interpreting, Uncategorized, WIT Life, Writers 
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WITLife is a series by Writer/Interpreter/Translator Stacy Smith (Kumamoto-ken, 2000-03).
My most recent assignment with the State Department had me doing simultaneous interpreting for a group of six officials from Japan’s central government.
They all came from different ministries ranging from Justice to Finance to Health (one of whose former officials was just murdered along with his wife in a recent high profile case). It was neat to talk to the participant from the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (aka MEXT), who met his wife in the workplace (when she was a tantousha for the JET Programme) and to hear stories from her experience traveling to promote it.
The trip was a success but was book-ended by two harrowing experiences. When the group arrived the day before the program was to start, I was in charge of meeting them at the airport as my co-interpreter was traveling from California and wouldn’t get in until that night. I was nervous about ushering all six of them safely from the airport to the hotel as previously my largest group had been two people, but since we had a van waiting for us I figured it would be ok.
That was until the group came out minus one person. At first, we politely exchanged “Hajimemashite“s and chitchatted, but when a half hour passed I began to get worried. I asked for details and they said that although they had all been in the same security lane, the missing participant had been pulled over into a different one.
A bit of panic set in and along with two of the group members, I pushed my way past doors clearly marked “Do Not Enter.” Once inside, the customs agent had no information, not even being able to tell me whether the participant was actually inside or not. I decided it was time to whip out my State Department ID card. The agent’s attitude changed, and he kindly informed me that the participant was inside and would be out soon.
Sure enough, he emerged unscathed a few minutes later, but it was a crazy way to start the trip. It turns out that because he had forgotten to have a particular form handy, they pulled him aside. Despite the fact that he produced it shortly after, they had made him wait on an endless line as the bureaucrats did their thing. Welcome to America!
The other nerve-wracking experience happened at the tail end of our trip, during our very last visit which was to the Maryland Correctional Adjustment Center (a supermaximum security prison!) requested by our visitor from the Ministry of Justice. He himself had been a Corrections Officer at a prison in Osaka and was eager to see how facilities here in the States compared. I was a bit curious too as I have never been inside a prison before, and I have to say that it was my first time interpreting for a warden!
However, when he announced that we were going to see the prisoners on Death Row (they were in a separate room partitioned off by a glass panel), my sweaty palms began gushing. Thank goodness my interpreting partner noticed my nervousness and opted for us to switch off at that moment, though to tell you the truth I was actually grateful for having to concentrate on forming coherent sentences so I didn’t have to think about where I was. Scary stuff…
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