At this time, it's easy to admire Ernest Satow, William Aston, Basil Chamberlain, and many others and their tremendous contributions; they are in a very real sense, our heroes. But I'd like to take another look at the communication challenges and the language situation at that time, something that we often forget about. I'd like to have you think for a moment about going to a concert. All of us go to concerts because we admire the accomplishment of a pianist, violinist or orchestra. Someone who has reached the pinnacle of their technical and artistic understanding is of course a very rare human being. Certainly Satow, Aston, Chamberlain were the concert pianists of the Japanese language and Japanese culture at that time. There were also Japanese, like Mori Arinori, who spoke English very well and knew well the western world. We have some other gentlemen here who are certainly in that tradition today. But these people were the exception, as all of our great musicians are even today. What was the situation liken terms of the average, or the everyday? There were many competent people, people who were able to use, who were able to get through, to communicate. There were also those who were like the young boy or girl who is trying to practice on the piano, driving us mad with the horrible sounds that come out. In other words, there was a tremendous range or variety of people who were using languages. It wasn't just the "concert pianists" of the language, like Ernest Satow, who were competent, who were abl o succeed in the purpose of communication, some better than others. I think this is an important point. In the international community, a world where everyday negotiation had to take place, whether it was practical things in the daily life, getting food or daily supplies, making business contracts, buying and selling, or whatever. There were a tremendous number of people who were coping, who were willing to use whatever skills they had in order to accomplish the task they had, often without resources or pepration.

One particular group, I think which is often forgotten at this time, were the Chinese compradores. The European community, in particular the British Empire, brought into Japan, in places like Kobe and Yokohama, a very large number of Chinese. Their descendants are still with us today. These were the people that contributed to the ease of communication in many ways. They didn't speak good English, certainly not British English; in fact it is from these people that the word "pidgin English" is derived, "pidgin" being a poor Chinese pronunciation of "business" (at least this is one theory, I am told). The point is that they were able to communicate their needs and do business.