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Institute of Technology alumni make an impact around the world
Tom and Karen Pierce: Gaining a Japanese perspective
by judy woodward
A GREAT BIG WORLD AWAITS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY GRADUATES, and no one knows that better than the Pierce Family. Tom and Karen, who are both aerospace engineering and mechanics graduates, and their sons have spent much of the last 15 years living in the Far East.
After two years in Shanghai, China, Tom and Karen are now on their second stay in Japan, where they live in Yokohama, the nation’s second largest city with a population of 3.5 million. Tom works as the Asian market director for Moog, Inc., a New York-based aerospace firm, and Karen is a substitute teacher at international high schools in Yokohama.
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| Tom (Aero ’80, M.S. ’81) and Karen Pierce (Aero ’81) are on their second stay in Japan, where they live in Yokohama, the nation’s second largest city with a population of 3.5 million. |
While they have adjusted to their international lifestyle, living in another country is not without its frustrations.
When they lived in Shanghai, the family’s house was palatial—or at least nothing like any place they had ever known when they were growing up in Willmar,
Minn., and Northeast Minneapolis. At 6,000 square feet, it had four bedrooms and five baths. But the Pierces, who were living in China in connection
with Tom’s work for an international company, weren’t exactly lolling in the lap of luxury.
The problem was the water. Thanks to low water pressure, there wasn’t enough of it, and what there was, wasn’t safe to drink. Tom remembers the couple’s
excitement when their cranky old booster pump finally burned out. At last, they thought, they’d get a new one that really worked. Not so fast. When the Chinese serviceman came, he advised the Pierces that the smoking wreck was perfectly normal. Tom recalls the man’s words. “‘Here in Shanghai, there’s always smoke in the water,’ the guy tells us. ‘Just open the window.’”
But most of the time, their global experiences have
been much more positive.
Karen has become fluent in Japanese, and even Tom has found that his language has changed, although his workday is conducted entirely in English. Since most of the people he encounters are not native English
speakers, Tom has noticed, “language becomes simpler and easier. I ov-er e-nun-ci-ate and slow my cadence by about 30 percent. I didn’t even know I was doing it, until a Japanese man told me.”
Tom and Karen have found that their Midwestern style has translated surprisingly well to an Asian context.
Karen even credits Tom’s small-town upbringing
in Willmar for his business success. “The gift of a small-town background has made him successful in multicultural relationships,” she said. “From that setting,
he learned to make people comfortable. Putting people at ease is really important in Asian business relationships.”
Still, they don’t want to minimize the leap involved in moving from Minnesota to Asia. Tom explains, “I had conducted business in Japan for about six years before we moved here, and I thought I understood things. So we moved and I thought it was going really well.” They were so confident in their new surroundings
that they allowed their sons, then ages 8 and 12, to cross the huge Tokyo metropolis by themselves to get to school.
“It’s an adventure, at first,” Karen said, “but the longer you’re here, the harder it is, because you know
you’ll never fit in completely.”
Consequently, Tom says he came to the fundamental
realization that, at some deep level, “you’ll never completely understand another society.”
Not that they ever regret their attempts to try. “We’ve learned to see how the rest of the world views America. Expatriate life has exploded our stereotypes
of other cultures. We’ve gained perspective on people as individuals,” Tom said.
Karen agrees, “When you meet new people, you’re looking for what you have in common—not what’s different.”
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