Eric Takabayashi <etakajp@yahoo.co.jp> wrote in message news:<4000075C.283A833E@yahoo.co.jp>...
> another fool wrote:
> 
> > Well duh - you're in Japan.  When I worked construction before I was
> > edumicated we worked DOT contracts.  Guess what the regulations and
> > spec's were written in?  Guess what our sub's had to know how to
> > read/understand?  Guess where we were?  Of course Florida's "English
> > Only" rule for government contracts (at least at the time - that might
> > have changed in the last 15 years) would make the US exclusionairy
> > right?
> 
> No, because English is the language used by people around the world as in business, science and technology,
> not Japanese.
> 

And yet, strangely, I work in a research lab with about 35 Japanese. 
Of those 2 speak fleunt english, 1 speaks broken english, and 2 can
write a coherent english statement if given several days and a
Japanese/English dictionary.  All of them have at least a MS and most
are PhD's in either physics or some field of engineering.  I would
imagine that the percentage would be considerably lower in the case we
are discussing.  And who should bear the cost of hiring the
translator?  The contractor or the contractee (since they will
probably be "bearing" that cost eventually anyway from the winning
contractor if applicable)?

> > > The Japs are notorious for a closed-door policy. Gaijins can go get stuffed
> > > when there is money or contracts involved, yet they will "make a buck out of
> > > gaijin" by having an International Expo.
> >
> > I fail to see anything that says "gaijin's are not welcome to apply" I
> > simply see that if you are going to do business in a country they
> > expect you to be able to communicate in the "language of the land".
> > Hardely exclusionairy.
> 
> Is that you say about the Japanese construction industry?

Actually I was saying it about the "International Expo" not the
construction industry per say.