As I opened the door to Miho's two pretty young friends, a sudden thought occurred to me. Miho had suggested that we meet because none of us spoke any German. Her note had said nothing about speaking English. After some halting introductions it became clear that their English was only slightly better than my tourist Italian. With the aid of hand gestures and frequent recourse to a well thumbed Berlitz it was established t...

When I was younger, I used to live in Hamburg and we would visit the jazz clubs on the infamous Reeperbahn. One of our regular haunts was a club called Sam’s Brazil. One of the other regulars was an elderly Japanese woman who like me, did not speak German. She did have good English however. Miho (as I will call her) had grown up in rural Japan before WWII. She must have been at least 70 when I knew her. We talked about ma...