I love language. It’s the reason I decided to be an English major, why I studied Japanese and French, and am proud to say I’ve been a conversational speaker of Pidgin almost since I could walk. I loved perfecting the different accents so that native speakers would compliment me, reading signs in a foreign country for my traveling partners who couldn’t, and I especially loved helping guests in my restaurant who were struggling to communicate with their English-speaking server.

I once helped explain to two deaf women that our restaurant was a grill-it-yourself concept, and how long they needed to cook their fish on each side, even though I only really knew the alphabet in American Sign Language. It took a while to spell out each word, but they were patient with me, and we laughed a lot as I stumbled through the confusing parts. When they wanted to know why I learned the ASL alphabet, I explained I had a classmate in the second grade whose grandmother was deaf, and she taught me.

I love how interpretive language is, which is why legislation must be drafted so specifically. I love how each sport and each profession has its own distinct language, and how a flimsy grasp of that language can decimate one’s credibility within that field, while a confident grasp of the same language can solidify one’s authority. I love poetry, and how it taught me that the right word doesn’t just convey a meaning, but can paint a picture. I love how so much of language is nonverbal, and how one’s tone, body language or the context in which it’s used can express feelings far deeper than the literal words themselves.

As a Japanese woman in Hawaii, a stereotype often thrust upon me is that I’m visiting from Japan, and often men in Waikiki will approach me speaking Japanese.

I’ll reply politely, in Japanese, then in English, giggling as they realize their faux pas. It is not, however, ever assumed that I speak French, as one family sheepishly discovered, cracking jokes “en Francais” at my expense, while I was serving them in a high-end cocktail lounge. When I retorted back, in French, just how funny I thought the joke was, they clammed up faster than you can say “Pepé Le Pew.”

It felt good to stand up to people who had underestimated me based solely on my appearance, because my favorite part about language is the access it grants you to that specific sector of a society or culture from which you might otherwise be excluded. Just as it’s impossible for those who are literate to look at a word without reading it, so is it impossible to completely exclude someone who can fluently understand what you are saying and respond. It is very possible, however, to exclude someone by treating them as if they don’t understand something, even though they may not only understand the topic at hand perfectly, but perhaps even better than the person doing the explaining.

In my 20-plus years navigating the bar scene as a petite woman who looks younger than her age, I’ve been “corrected” and “explained to” about everything from the date of Mauna Loa’s last eruption (for which I was here and old enough to remember) to the ingredients in chutney (my favorite condiment). I was even interrupted while conducting a whiskey seminar, by my own guest speaker, who insisted the minimal age for Irish whiskey was four years. (It’s three years.) The irony is that in each of these situations, the explainer was wrong, yet all my training in hospitality, or maybe my upbringing as a female, taught me it was impolite to correct them.

Grandmaster Pacific Ocean navigator Mau Piailug said, “If you can read the ocean, you will never be lost.” My biggest takeaway of 2023 was if you never correct the people who misread you, and therefore mistreat you, you risk losing yourself. And while it’s not always important to be right, don’t let the subtlety of the attack allow you to be wronged. Let’s get 2024 started with a bang and a resolution to respect and stand up for ourselves, to read each other’s waves and currents, and maybe even learn to speak each other’s languages, so that no one should ever be alienated in our presence again.

In the spirit of multilingualism, try your hand at this East meets West, smoky riff on the classic Sherry Cobbler, using Italian Marsala and Suntory Japanese whisky.

Lingua Franca

3 ounces Florio Vecchioflorio Marsala Superiore Dry

1 ounce Suntory Toki Japanese whisky

0.5 ounces freshpressed lemon juice

0.5 ounces simple syrup (1 part sugar: 1 part water)

Directions:

Shake all ingredients just once over ice, and fine strain over fresh rocks into a Collins glass. Garnish with mint sprigs, orange half-moon slices and seasonal berries.

Alicia Yamachika is a bartender and craft mixologist, who currently is the key account manager at Southern Glazer’s Wine & Spirits on Oahu. Follow her on Instagram (@alicia_yamachika). Her column will appear every second Wednesday in Crave.

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