In September 1993, I was on a plane headed from Cameroon to Nairobi via Zaire, now the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Behind me, three Zairians were chatting in rather loud voices. They were awfully noisy. Their voices were not only loud, but cheerful as well, in an overbearing and “interactive” way. Their voices, in a sharp way, brought back my recollections of Zaire.

From 1986 through 1989, I was in Zaire conducting a field study of agriculturalists, the Bongando, living in the tropical forests. I came back to Japan to write a thesis, but was planning to go back to Zaire soon afterward. However, a civil war suddenly broke out, and blocked any attempt to enter the country. Ten years have gone by, and I am still unable to go back to that country.

My nostalgia, however, disappeared long before the airplane arrived in Kinshasa. Two young German ladies were looking sternly at the three, as if asking what was wrong with them. After the nostalgia filled up my senses and saturated them, I too became overwhelmed by the loudness.

Nonetheless, it was the way they talked that that evoked my memory of Zaire the most. However, the subjective impression made to others, such as “they're the people who talk that way,” has hardly ever been made a proper theme of study in anthropology. Perhaps the subjective impression is overly naïve, and it offers little to grasp as a subject of analysis. In this report, I would like to look mainly into the manner people make utterances, and discuss their “posture to others,” which leaves impressions on others.