One of the greatest anxieties students studying abroad suffer is the humbling feeling of being forced to interact with someone who does not speak your language. There are certain scenarios in which not knowing the local language has confounded my efforts to go about daily life during my time in Japan, a far cry from Ohio University. While train tickets and drinks are simple and often automated transactions, finding food and other commodities is a different situation entirely. I am often greeted by a polite cashier at a convenient store with several sentences from which I can only glean a few words.
Nonetheless, we do not see a pandemic of starving Americans in Japan, which is very good for someone who enjoys Japanese food as much as I do. Nor is the destitution and hunger often experienced by migrant communities the sole result of a language barrier. Societies around the world, even those historically isolated like Japan, accommodate foreigners well. What makes it possible, then, for me to walk in and out of a convenient store with a satisfying rice ball and go about my day? Money.
Unless otherwise communicated, any place of business assumes that someone walking through the door is looking to buy something. Both the consumer and the cashier, without requiring extensive intelligence or education, knows going in that you can’t walk out with a product from the store without paying for it. The beautiful thing about this schema is that in a world where often the most problematic situations are caused by a lack of the ability to communicate, the use of currency and a fair market system allows individuals from vastly different cultures to benefit from each other’s time. I contributed to the cashier by giving the store money which pays her wage, while the cashier contributed to my day by selling me the cure to an empty stomach.
Money is a universal language in the sense that I can pick out something in a store, pay for it, and walk out without having to know the language of anyone I interact with. The mere act of voluntary exchange communicates just enough so the cashier and I can reap the gains from trade.
Upon landing in Tokyo after an eighteen-hour flight, the back pain I had assumed was temporary became worse and worse. Barely a week in, I was obliged to visit a clinic, taking with me a well-regarded staff member from the university. Without going into too much detail, I received treatment and a medicine which cleared up much of the pain. The doctor’s diagnosis from the x-rays was a herniated disc; a problem with my spine causing painful inflammation. The doctor stated that with treatment, I should be able to forgo surgery until my return to America.
His next words, however, went above and beyond my expectations. My translator informed me that the doctor wished to express his care for international students in Tokyo, and so agreed to perform each subsequent treatment pro bono if I would help teach the staff English after each visit. The language of money plays a role even without an exchange of currency.
These gains from trade do not accrue to me alone, of course. They are mutual. In I, Pencil Leonard Reed celebrates the marvelous fact that disparate people from around the globe are able to work together through the price system, which effectively communicates the subjective value of each person’s comparative advantages (the doctor’s medical expertise, my knowledge of English, etc.) so others can make more economical trade-offs. Even in a situation where I was so new to the culture that I couldn’t even engage in a basic conversation, the language of money, an affirmation of my individual value, enabled me to benefit from what somebody else had to give and vice versa.
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