Cross-cultural communication （86）　

86) Boy (Girl) Friend
In Japanese novels and films, you often hear lines like “He's not my sweetheart. He's just my boyfriend.” In Japan, I think the line between a friend, meaning just a friend, and a boyfriend/girlfriend (BF, GF), meaning a slightly more intimate relationship, is quite vague. Rather, I think the above line is used to emphasize the lack of a relationship, with the meaning “He's not my sweetheart with whom I have a physical relationship, but just my boyfriend with whom I have a platonic relationship.”

I'm sorry for suddenly getting so logical. The way loanwords are used in Japan is often quite different from how they are used in their home countries, so I don't mean to criticize that. However, BF and GF are not Japanese-made English words, and they are often used as they are even when you go overseas. Since they are words that express a relationship between a man and a woman, if the definition differs on both sides, there is a possibility that a big incident could occur due to that misunderstanding. So, I would like to introduce some incidents that have occurred in Japan due to the way these words are used, based on my experiences living abroad. First of all, let's start with the meaning of BF and GF in English-speaking countries. This is more commonly used to mean a sweetheart or lover in Japan. In other words, it means a person with whom you have a deeper relationship than with a mere friend, including a sexual relationship. This is not just the case in English-speaking countries, but also among foreigners (and perhaps even Japanese people) who can exchange information in English without difficulty.

The first story is about when I participated in a one-month French summer course at Grenoble University in France during the summer holidays of my fifth year at medical school. I was able to join the intermediate class, and there were several Venezuelan government-sponsored exchange students in my class. One day, I was consulted by a Japanese woman from the beginner class. She was a single woman in her early 30s who had started going out with a Venezuelan man in the same class, but she said that although she had told him that they should just be boyfriend and girlfriend, his words and actions were escalating. They were both at the beginner level in French, and they were speaking in English. When I used my Venezuelan connections in my class to investigate, as I had expected, he was interpreting the BF/GF relationship in a purely English way, and he was thinking about getting married.

The second story is about when I was in my mid-40s and working in Paris, mainly treating Japanese people living in Paris. I received many consultations from Japanese women who was seeing French men, as a side issue when they came to the clinic for a cold or something else. Most of the consultations were from women, which was a little disappointing as a Japanese man, but there were no consultations from Japanese men who were seeing French women. Most of the consultations were from women who had just come to France, were still unsure of their French, and were speaking to their boyfriends in English. As if it were a stamp, they say, “At first, I said it would be a boyfriend-girlfriend relationship...”. French men are about 100 times more passionate about relationships than Anglo-Saxon men, so they end up living together. Then it turns out that the man has no income. So the woman says, “At the time, I said it would be a boyfriend-girlfriend relationship...”, and he says, “At the time, you said it was okay to be a boyfriend-girlfriend relationship...”, and so the relationship falls apart.

People might say that the story of my three years in Brooklyn, New York is missing. In Brooklyn, whether it's a colleague or a patient, when it comes to relationships, African Americans have far more interesting anecdotes and customs than Caucasians. In fact, for them, whether they are male or female, single or married, they don't care about the distinction between just friends and BF/GF! The first step in dating for African-American men and women in Brooklyn is to go out for dinner together. It seems that, regardless of who asks the other out, the norm is to spend the night together after dinner. So, I think that the serious discussions we have here seem like a game in elementary school to them .

Lesson learned this time: When you fall in love overseas, check the original meaning of the English language!

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