I was sitting in the international student adviser’s office and talking with Jennifer,the international student adviser of Oregon Institute of Technology. I would visit the office almost every day back then to ask numerous questions about school regulations, dormitory regulations, English problems, and other miscellaneous issues like how to open a bank account. There were not many of other international students frequently visiting there. This was because other students usually did not need the support in their daily lives. They were either already fluent in English or under a tender care of senior students of the same nationalities.
I was sitting there on that day to be informed of the would-be host family for international students. There are two sorts of host families. One simply invites the international students as guests and shares a good time with them. The other let the international students live together at decent costs. To me with very limited fund for the study, finding one in the latter group was extremely important.
Jennifer started to explain a couple who were interested in supporting international students. They are Mr. and Mrs. Armstrong. According to Jennifer, they owned a big house and they had been in China for some period to teach English. She continued her explanation saying, “Mr. Edwin Armstrong maintains the computer system of this school. And Mrs. Karen Armstrong is a midwife working at the hospital up there.” I immediately asked Jennifer what it meant by the term, “midwife.” This was when the conversation started to roll in a wrong direction.
Jennifer, with sufficient knowledge of my English ability, gave me a brief explanation with carefully chosen words. “Sho (which is my nickname), midwives are a special group of people who help pregnant women when they have their babies. Midwives deliver babies.” Let me tell you that I had had six years of English classes and that all of my grades in these classes had been A or the equivalent. But there had not been any skit practice involving a pregnant woman. All I could imagine from Jennifer’s best chosen words, “deliver babies,” was physical transfer of babies. I said in my mind, “This is a country where school bus service is available. (School buses are not common in Japan.)” There was no reason to doubt the existence of that kind of service as a part of social infrastructure of this country. So I naturally presumed that Karen was a driver of some kind of vehicles specially designed for new-born babies.
I was totally absorbed in the thoughts over economical feasibility of such service. I unintentionally repeated Jennifer’s words, “Deliver babies…”
She picked up something unclear in my mind quickly and stressed, “Yes, she delivers babies at the hospital.”
Her emphasis successfully wiped off my suspicious thoughts, and I wanted to know more about the job, which sounded extremely rare in Japan. So I became curious and inquisitive. “Is it a common job for women in this country?”
Jennifer, somewhat relieved and in the typical “let’s think it together” atmosphere, replied, “Well, yes. Since they are called midwives, they are supposed to be women. There must be other term for men delivering babies. But they are not common.”
My suspicion revived because I couldn’t think of any rationale that such truck drivers should be women. I said, “I still wonder exactly what kind of people need that kind of service.”
Jennifer sensed some confusion and replied, “ Pregnant women, Sho. Of course, there are hospitals without any midwives. But I’m sure that the service is for pregnant women.”
Conversation seemed to be approaching its end. I was a little disappointed to find nothing very new to me in it. And I looked out of the window, where small snow flakes began to fall. It was early November. I murmured, “It must be a tough job during the winter.” Jennifer caught my words and responded, “Do you think so?”
I turned to Jennifer again and gave a comment which happened to be a key to solve the misunderstanding. “Yes. It must be so. I heard there would be a heavy snowfall around here. Delivering babies in the snow must be a difficult job.”
Jennifer first seemed astonished and she soon became brushed. She put her hands on her mouth. She stood up abruptly and barely said, “Excuse me, Sho.” She ran out of the office and never came back for next three minutes. She came back to the office with a little bit awkward but serious face and found me wondering what to do. She explained what it meant by midwives with extremely carefully chosen words this time as well as what happened to herself during her absence. What sounded like a tough job for women to me was replaced with an international student adviser on that day.