Japanese ‘Stew’ vs ‘Kyakushitsujoumuin’
While planing for my holiday travel today, I stumbled across an interesting artifact of the Japanese language. The nonsexist term for “flight attendant” is a real mouthful: “kyakushitsujoumuin” 客室乗務員 (きゃくしつじょうむいん). Damn, kyakushitsujoumuin— no wonder I’ve never learn the word.
Japanese Wikipedia — 客室乗務員 [flight attendant]
Flight attendant was made the formal term and often in JAL only “attendant” is used and that is abbreviated to “AT” in most writing. ANA use “cabin attendant” or “CA”.
However, the Japanese airlines continue to using the name “stewardess” on all their official forms, and correct way to address a female attendant is to call her “stewardess” or “stewardess Suzuki” and the like. The Japanese mass media uses “stewardess” and “stew” frequently and there is no sign that it disappearing.
Japanese hate long names like kyakushitsujoumuin and just use “stew” (スッチー) a lot and even avoid “stewardess” (スチュワーデス ). However stew is a big improvement over the previous terms Japanese have used like “air girl” (エアガール) and “air hostess” (エアホステス) ….
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