My wife (Japanese American) and I are headed to Tokyo on Saturday and somehow word got out through her family that we would be in Sapporo late next week. A relative has stepped in and now we are obligated (and excited at the prospect) to meet up with a family member while we are in Sapporo. We meant to do this 10 years ago when my wife's great grandmother was still alive but never made it. My wife speaks no Japanese, the family member no English, so I figure we need a translator if this is to be anything more than crazy awkward.

Any pointers on how to find someone who can not only help with translation but is able to help understand/bridge the cultural divide too?

Wow, not much time to prepare. This may be a disaster in the making.

I thought at first that the free Goodwill Guide service might be helpful for you but it seems they are only available in Hokkaido at Furano Ski Area and the city of Hakodate. I'm surprised at that as they are everywhere else in Japan and Sapporo has a university, which is where most of the volunteer guides are from.

There is a professional interpreting service but their rate is about $250.00 for a day. http://zls.ueuo.com/page1/index.html

Other than that, I am out of ideas. Perhaps your relatives in Sapporo have a friend who speaks English and can help.

If there are no relatives on the ground who speak English and can help, I think the interpreter suggestion is a good one, and I might suggest taking it a step further and hiring an English-speaking tour guide for this.

You can use a site like ToursByLocals. I have no affiliation and no experience with this guide, but here's one in Sapporo whose English seems good.

The benefit here is that you get someone who, as a tour guide, is hopefully likely to be engaging and friendly, which could help to break the ice and keep things from being awkward.

It's an interesting conundrum, and I'm sure that a guide who is interested in bridging Japanese and Western culture could be convinced to be hired to help

Great suggestion, and well-reasoned approach. We will give this a try!

Depending on how old the relatives are, you may not need an interpreter (not a translator, since translators like myself work only with written materials).

Professional interpreters cost money, as noted above. Think triple digits of dollars per day.

If there are younger relatives, they may be willing to practice their English with you. Everyone under the age of about seventy has studied some English in school, but of course, younger people are more likely to remember it.

I suggest bringing photographs of the family back home and any photos of deceased or first-generation immigrant relatives you might have. Be sure to bring a present for the family, perhaps a coffee table book about your part of the country or some product that is unique to your region. If there are teenagers, bring T-shirts from the best-known local college. But bring something.

Good point that I didn't think of. The Japanese relatives will almost certainly have gifts for the visitors. Visitors should bring something in return, preferably nicely wrapped. Even if not wrapped to meet US security requirements, bring something from home as a gift. From my home region it might be some local produce like almonds or raisins or wine or perhaps a picture book and/or tee shirts from nearby Yosemite. A local connection makes it more personal and appreciated.

We're covered on that point, but thanks for raising, agree it's not a natural thing for people from US to think of.

Perhaps your hotel concierge can help you to find a suitable translator/interpreter. They should be used to this request and have a list of contacts.

I definitely agree about bringing gifts. Ideally, they should be wrapped nicely but you might be able to get away with placing each gift in a fancy little bag.

Thanks for all the suggestions, in the end I couldn't get things to work out, lots of time delay issues between my wife's grandmother in SoCal and her sister in Sapporo, compounded by a series of cultural issues that my wife's grandmother (I love her to death by I have to say "somewhat predictably") glossed over until it was too late. This clearly would have worked out much better if my wife had just learned to speak Japanese as a child ;-)
The irony of the whole thing is that I had offered to fly my wife's grandmother (and my wife's mother and aunt) over when we first started planning the trip in September. Nobody took us up on the offer, and then as we were preparing to leave our kids on my mother in law for the week, the trans-Pacific communications started up. We have tentative plans to go skiing in Nikseko next year, and based on this will just buy my wife's grandmother a ticket even if she again declines when we are in the planning stages.

Speaking as an older person, please do not expect her to accept if the ticket is in economy. I would not. 10 hours in Y is just too hard on older bodies.

No need to worry about that, there actually appears to be a gene over on my wife's side of the family that results in absolute refusal to fly economy class across an ocean. I had offered her grandmother ANA F when we were in the process of planning in September, it's only fitting for someone who made many sacrifices to come here and contributed so much to my wife's upbringing!

^:-:

Some very good suggestions up-thread.

One additional thing to consider was mentioned here:
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/japan...e-tourist.html

I do use a translator/dictionary when in Japan.