# Providing multilingual services - if the Iranian can do it...


It happened two of the three times that I crossed the Niagara/Buffalo
border last year, so it cannot be such a rare occurrence. The first time
I met him in the line at Toronto Bus Terminal, an elderly Chinese guy.
I chatted with him in Chinese, and he told me he’d lived in Canada for
three years, but spoke almost no English. He was too old he said, if he
learnt something one day, the next it was gone. He asked me if I could
assist him later, if there would be any problem. I agreed.

At the border, I went in together with him, and interpreted for him
during the border interview. They asked him a number of questions, he
answered (through me), and he was asked to go to the next “station”. I
myself had to get a new visa waiver, which would cost me 10$ US, and
they did not accept Canadian dollars. They told me to run across to the
other side were there was a tax free store, and change my money there.
When I came back, they were waiting for me, and asked “Are you the guy
who speaks Chinese?”. Apparently they had found some documents on him
that contradicted the story that he had told through me. Now his
explanations got much harder to interpret, and I was worried I’d get
something wrong, but finally they let him through the border.

The second time, I passed through customs, and was waiting on the bus
for at least half an hour. Then a customs officer came into the bus and
asked “Does anyone speak Chinese here?”. I volunteered, and was taken
inside to interpret for a young Chinese woman. The story was quite
complicated, involving a miscarriage, family problems and health issues.
I was in no way qualified to translate, but they had nobody else, and
luckily they let her through in the end.

Canadian media reported before Christmas about a Polish traveller,
traveling in an airplane in the first time for his life, who came to
Vancouver to visit his mother. Speaking not a word of English, he
somehow made it through immigration, but could not find the way out of
the security zone. Apparently he spent over 8 hours in there, while his
mother was waiting on the outside, just meters away. Finally he became
agitated, and guards arrived and tasered him (nevermind that he could
not possibly had had any weapons, being in the security zone, and that
they should have been able to easily overman him). Because of a heart
condition, he tragically died from being tasered
(link[1](http://www.cbc.ca/canada/british-columbia/story/2007/11/14/bc-taservideo.html),
[2](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K6nx0Cx3uMk)).

My final exhibit is the [Toronto TTC](http://www.toronto.ca/ttc/)
(subway system). They have been displaying ads saying [“call xxx, talk
to the TTC in 70
languages”](http://www.toronto.ca/ttc/multilingual/multilang.htm). I was
always wondering how they would provide that many languages, and when I
saw Malaysian on there, I thought I’d try it out (Bahasa Melayu is
almost the same as Bahasa Indonesia, which I speak). I called the
number, and was greeted by a menu “For information about surface routes,
press 1. For information about subways, press 2. For information about
delays, press 3.” (I am reconstructing purely after memory, but you get
the general gist). [...] “For information in other languages, press 9″.

So someone who needed transit information, and did not speek English
would probably already have hung up a long time ago. I wonder if they
actually field tested this system on a single person who doesn’t speak
any English.

As for the border crossing incidents, I’d like to propose a very simple
solution that I experienced first hand in Iran. It’s quite curious,
because at this time we had been travelling in the same way through four
“‘Stans”, and China, but this never happened there. However, in Iran a
common occurence was that someone would see us stopping at a shop.
They’d be very excited to talk to us, but spoke no English. Not easily
deterred, they picked up their cell phone and called their English
speaking cousin, and gave us the phone.

-   “Hello?”
-   “Hello! This is Ali’s cousin. How can I help you?”
-   “Well… we don’t really need any help, we just got randomly handed
  this cell phone”.
-   “OK, let me talk to my cousin again.”
   (Lot’s of Farsi being spoken)
-   “So, my cousin would like to invite you for lunch.”
   (We follow after the cousin, and receive delicious food and lot’s
  of laughs).

  Such a simple method. I realize that the Niagara border cannot have
  a Chinese translator just waiting in case there is a Chinese crossing the
  border (they probably don’t even have anyone speaking French there),
  but why isn’t there some kind of central interpretation centre for
  the government, where they could call in, choose Chinese, and
  instantly get a Chinese interpreter on the phone? That Chinese
  interpreter would have been able to interpret better than I could
  have, and would always be available. Perhaps in big airports you
  could even install big phones, with one button for each language, so
  that you could easily get information in your own language if you
  got lost.

  As for the TTC quandry, I have no simple solution. Is such a service
  even useful, even if they gave each language their own phone number?
  I wonder if there has been any research made on how to design
  services that are accessible to people who do not speak the local
  language. What are the services that would be useful to them? Is a
  Chinese map of the TTC a useful service for Chinese speakers, or is
  something else needed? An attempt to broaden access should be
  applauded, but this needs to be tested on the people who need it -
  monolingual English speakers will never be able to design efficient
  services for multilingual and multicultural access.