Everyone speaks English.  Don’t worry.  You don’t have to do anything different.  You can get everything you need and don’t need to bring much from home.

Two words: Bull Dung!  Yeah you heard me.  Offended?  Well click off this post.  If not, read on.

When I worked for a major financial investment firm a few years ago, I saw that many of my colleagues who had fancy business degrees did not go near the international calls.  I made them and enjoyed them.  If you were expecting everyone to speak English, you were living in another world.  Really?  Do you English speakers think that you are the world’s true majority?  Think of the millions of Chinese and Spanish speakers.  My limited Spanish was of real help because the firm’s clients’ English phone skills were limited but not their Spanish skills.  It would have been better if I knew French or German but Spanish was still accepted.  But yes, you had to get through the operators first to get to the person you wanted.  The automated ones were worse but somehow, were able to pick up my Spanish.  I started retaining simple key words and numbers in French and German very quickly to get past the machines.

I loved my international clients!  Loved, loved, loved them.  A knowledge of world history  and world current events was always a good ice breaker.  It is very difficult to develop a trust in five minutes.  I was dealing with very sensitive documents with some deals worth billions of dollars. I miss the financial industry.  It was such a rush.

Oh and the things that I discovered and learned at the time like the country of Lichtenstein (I want to go there so bad!),  wonderful dishes to make (sometimes deals did not close in a short amount of time), places to see, cultural differences, what raising children is like where they are from, etc.

Anyway, what does this have to do with my current music education research?  Everything!  You are told that everyone speaks English in Mumbai.  Well, it is true in a loose sense.  Hundreds of languages are spoken in India and English is the connecting language between all Indians.  However, I have an American accent.  When you speak to an Indian who has a British-Indian accent while they speak English, some of them have trouble deciphering your American accent, especially on the phone.  There is a lot of: “can you repeat, please” and “could you speak more slowly” and “I am sorry, I am not used to an American accent (refer to the first two phrases in this sentence.)”  I think it would be a lot worse if I had a thick Boston, New York, or southern accent.

Speaking loudly, slowly, and enunciating is not offensive.  People do no have the time to be offended here.  You will instinctively know when it is appropriately to do these things.  They are probably as fascinated with me as I am with them.  I have so much to learn from them.  Their insights are amazing.  And yes, I love the variation of a British accent here.  So musical.

This next part will be repeated in an India, music education post but needs to be spoken about here too.

After the trouble with speaking to people on the phone with the schools, I decided to do a non-structured interview where I took notes on the computer, a round table discussion, if you will.  I DID NOT whip out the computer right away.  It was normally introduced after 15 minutes of discussion.  This was EXTREMELY effective and the people I met felt very comfortable around me.  I did not spring the video camera on them (maybe one organization knew about it in the emails) until I established a relationship with them.  Video cameras are intrusive.  I then came up with the policy that I will create interview questions that they will approve and will video tape the interview.  They will have the final say about the video before i post it to the blog.  This makes people even more comfortable and for this type of research, it completely works.  That is why the media has not posted yet.

Better yet, I started the conversation talking a little bit about myself and deluged a lot of the information (and some Hindi words) to let them know that I have done my homework.  That is when the conversation took off lightening fast.  Sometimes, I would sit back and listen and not take notes.  The places where these conversations went were amazing and totally unexpected.  I could not have predicted some of the twists and turns.  I can’t wait to share them with you later on.

Mentioning the Bollywood movie 3 Idiots is a great conversation piece!  It definitely reflects the Indian culture even though it was made 6 years ago.  It even leads to discussions on how Bollywood effects children’s exposure to music and hearing loss (more about that in the research portion of my blogs later.)  I even talk about the Indian chick lit novel that I am reading, not the novel itself, but how the author works in a high powered financial job during the day and writing chick lit is her release.  So yes, getting to know your client through pop culture is great.  They are impressed that you took the time out to care about getting to know about their culture.  Also, you may learn a thing or two.

As I have mentioned before in a another post, reading British chick lit has also helped me.  The British idioms that you learn in those books help with speaking to people in Mumbai and understanding them when they use them.  Some are not so popular in America.  Many people were shocked that this was my first trip abroad.  Reading and seeking knowledge helps.  I can’t stress that enough.  Hit up your local library and get started!  Delve into genres you are not comfortable with.  It will help if you ever do research like this.

Knowing the history, going back to the time of Christ is very important as well.  It helps explain so much about what is going on today.  Bombay is definitely not an exception to this.  This is how I am able to pick up Hindi.  Some of the words have British influence and some are Latin based thanks to the Portuguese that held control hundreds of years ago.  The Muslims also held control as well except my Arabic is pretty much nonexistent.  It also helps you understand the culture too.  Take a step back and look at America now and think about how the history from a couple hundred years ago shaped today’s society.

I must also mention that having someone as a translator with you (my chauffeurs) has been wonderful.  I was finally able to get the charger adapters.  My hotel is woefully inadequate in that there is no tourist store to purchase the necessities and the mall across the street is not much better.  I was able to get awesome chargers for $10!  My chauffeur was tipped well for his efforts.

Also, don’t look down your nose at the blue collared workers.  Strike up a conversation with them.  They love to share what they know and a lot of times, it was dead useful information.  They will also go out of their way to help you.  I have three chauffeurs that fight over me for my business.  I am a great client.  🙂

Off to my next interview with another organization.  Loads more to come.

Post scrip: This monolinguistic culture in America has got to go!  A high school diploma should only be given to those who have mastered 2 languages with English being one of them and the second one being of the student’s choice.  I am guilty but at least I have moderate Spanish skills to get by.