I got my first class Japanese marine license 3 years ago and it was up for renewal.
I though I would fill you in on what that entails.
The license renewals are held at different community centres around the state on Thursday, Fridays and Saturdays.
I could not get to one which was local and had to travel 1 hour north to a small fishing village. I mean small.
Waited outside till my name was called. When I walked in 15 grey heads turned to stare. I am the only non-Japanese in the state with a license and definitely the only foreigner who had turned up there for a renewal. At 67 I was probably the youngest in the room.
Eyes tested, photo taken and sat down to a lecture on PDF maintenance by a retired Coast Guard officer.
When that was done we were broken up into groups of 3, given a Coast Guard report on a marine accident that resulted in a fatality.
Ours involved a failed rescue attempt where one of the rescuers drowned.
The report was pretty complete, with weather conditions etc.
Have to admit that with the heavy dialect and all of the slang that 80 year old fishers use I could hardly understand a word.
After that one member of each group reported back as to the identifiable causes of each accident.

Just the day before a tour boat carrying 52 primary school kids hit a rock and sank in the Inland sea. That was the main topic of the rest of the morning. The skipper (with many years of experience in that area) decided to give the kids a thrill by detouring under the huge Seto Bridge. The collision ripped a prop and shaft right out.
In just that area in 1955 a ship went down and 150 school children drowned so on the day before the excursion the school ran a drill on what to do if there was a mishap.
Amazingly the kids did exactly what they were instructed to do. When they abandoned ship in the dark, they formed a ring of 5 or 6 to make it easier for the rescuers to spot them and also to keep there spirits up.
Skipper was arrested for negligence as is locked away. I worry how he will deal with the shame.
Another planet, Japan.

gary

Hi Gary ,
I'm impressed.
Perhaps naive question but do you speak and write Japanese .
I worked 5 years for Mitsui Bussan in finance back when the abacus was the go to calculator before computers.
As best as I tried to learn katakana and hiragana failed miserably .

I just love these stories.
Thanks for sharing Gary!

Thanks Gary, an interesting insight

Perhaps naive question but do you speak and write Japanese .

Hi BB.
I can speak pretty good daily conversational Japanese, but as soon as the topic changes to something specific I can just half guess what is being said. Far from fluent.
My wife is an architect and when she has colleagues around and they talk about work, I am completely lost.
Just think of all the special vocabulary that we use on here discussing marine matters. I had to study all of that to get the license.
But there is still at lot of that stuff that is beyond me,

As for reading and writing, my kids passed my level when they were 7 years old.
I have the greatest respect for anyone who is fluent in two languages.

gary

Select to expand quote

garymalmgren said..
Perhaps naive question but do you speak and write Japanese .

Hi BB.
I can speak pretty good daily conversational Japanese, but as soon as the topic changes to something specific I can just half guess what is being said. Far from fluent.
My wife is an architect and when she has colleagues around and they talk about work, I am completely lost.
Just think of all the special vocabulary that we use on here discussing marine matters. I had to study all of that to get the license.
But there is still at lot of that stuff that is beyond me,

As for reading and writing, my kids passed my level when they were 7 years old.
I have the greatest respect for anyone who is fluent in two languages.

gary

Hi gary,
thanks for above . Your too modest I'm sure.
Terry