Public Address | Cafe | Field Theory: Philosophy and the Mobile Phone Shop

Paul Campbell

Tue, 14 Sept 2010 20:34:46 +1200

some of them are in parliament now .... as party leaders ...

I've been talking to people I've been working with in Taiwan recently – they explain the english name thing as basically they're given a list of english names with 'meanings' on the first day of english class and…

Morgan Nichol

Tue, 14 Sept 2010 14:05:40 +1200

I had a McGillicuddy Serious Party friend who once managed to get her occupation in the electoral roll listed as Lion Tamer.

I miss those guys.

Rich Lock

Tue, 14 Sept 2010 13:34:58 +1200

I've tried to do something vaguely along these lines here, when I last updated my passport I put down my occupation as 'Hero'.

I had a McGillicuddy Serious Party friend who once managed to get her occupation in the electoral roll listed as Lion Tamer.

I inadvertently managed to get…

Lucy Stewart

Tue, 14 Sept 2010 10:50:22 +1200

For these students, this rebranding seems at least in part a deliberate language learning strategy, part of "thinking in English".

I think so; the ones I have known are quite vehement about being called by their English names, even in the face of well-intentioned and even reasonably correctly pronounced attempts…

Kyle Matthews

Tue, 14 Sept 2010 10:24:27 +1200

I've tried to do something vaguely along these lines here, when I last updated my passport I put down my occupation as 'Hero'.

I had a McGillicuddy Serious Party friend who once managed to get her occupation in the electoral roll listed as Lion Tamer.

linger

Tue, 14 Sept 2010 01:15:25 +1200

@Lucy: not just in NZ – almost all of the Chinese students I have taught here in Japan take English names for class purposes. In the past few years, such names have included "Candice" (similar in sound to her full Chinese name); "Tina" (adapted from part of the sound of…

linger

Tue, 14 Sept 2010 00:31:28 +1200

@Ben: nah, I didn't have any input into the original katakanaisation of my name – that happened before I ever set foot in Japan. I wouldn't have minded if there had been some creative (descriptive, meaningful) changes to create a "nice personalisation", but instead it was (and, had to be)…

BenWilson

Tue, 14 Sept 2010 00:16:37 +1200

Isabel's a pretty old name too, you know! I think the oddness of their choices is probably pretty random, that if you chose names randomly from a book of names, you'd stand a very good chance of landing a really old fashioned one – the new and hip names are…

Lucy Stewart

Mon, 13 Sept 2010 23:35:56 +1200

A name is a big choice. Letting the locals name you isn't a bad idea, at least they'll get it right, and it could be nicely personalized. Then again, it could be a cruel joke too. But there's almost as big a chance that you could accidentally have that just…

Edward Siddle

Mon, 13 Sept 2010 21:31:30 +1200

aren't these stamps part of how japanese can get away with committing pension fraud too? pensions can be authorised using the stamp, rather than a signature being needed....or something. i'm a bit hazy on the details. my wife told me the story after reading it in saturday's dompost, but i…

BenWilson

Mon, 13 Sept 2010 20:20:41 +1200

How do you want to present yourself (honne, as you point out) to other people?

A name is a big choice. Letting the locals name you isn't a bad idea, at least they'll get it right, and it could be nicely personalized. Then again, it could be a cruel joke…

Hadyn Green

Mon, 13 Sept 2010 18:02:33 +1200

@Linger which university and what do you do? I've been trying to talk to some of the unis for a while with no luck

@Morgan from what I can tell you need an address, but this can be a hotel you're staying at. But it helped that I already had…

Islander

Mon, 13 Sept 2010 17:32:08 +1200

I once tried 'fungus-plucker' for 'occupation' on an IRD form.
I still cant understand why they refused it...

Morgan Nichol

Mon, 13 Sept 2010 17:15:15 +1200

And I honestly don't know what I'd do if I had a chance to come up with a meaningful name in another language. How do you want to present yourself (honne, as you point out) to other people? It's like picking a domain name but more serious.

I've tried to…

Morgan Nichol

Mon, 13 Sept 2010 17:13:38 +1200

Nice post, Hayden. Looking forward to my first trip to Japan, in a couple of months. Hope we have someone nearly as cool when we all try to sort out our prepays (I've heard that sometimes it's not easy for foreigners to get them, but that may only be true…

JackElder

Mon, 13 Sept 2010 16:38:50 +1200

Pulp Fiction, actually.

Slightly more seriously: I don't have a problem with my name being mangled during transliteration to another language/orthography. English does this to other languages, I don't see why we shouldn't take our lumps with the rest of them.

And I honestly don't know what I'd do if…

recordari

Mon, 13 Sept 2010 16:07:16 +1200

I'm sticking with my Chinese name, Peng, Zhi Shi.

'Wisdom, Knowledge, Intelligence'. And humility?

Well, that was one of them, the other one was 'excite, quickly, earth female'. Eh?

BenWilson

Mon, 13 Sept 2010 14:24:43 +1200

Honne and Tatemae, Jack.

JackElder

Mon, 13 Sept 2010 14:14:08 +1200

I'd have picked something like "Strong Gentle Man" in kanji.

Really? I'd have gone with "bad motherfucker", myself.

BenWilson

Mon, 13 Sept 2010 13:51:39 +1200

linger that sounded like the perfect opportunity just to choose the name you like best. I'd have picked something like "Strong Gentle Man" in kanji.

linger

Mon, 13 Sept 2010 13:27:28 +1200

I have an inkan (Japanese name stamp) now, having been forced to get one for some of my university duties. I had resisted it for some years, on the grounds that there is no way to put anything like my real name on one. There is a kanji word [meaning…

DexterX

Mon, 13 Sept 2010 12:27:58 +1200

Making the inscrutable more scrutable.

Kyle Matthews

Mon, 13 Sept 2010 12:16:12 +1200

They also had to stick a long knife in their guts and move it left to right to commit suicide, which they would have had to do if they'd ever pretended to be someone else and got caught.

I'm thinking they aren't really a modern role model for administrative and…

BenWilson

Mon, 13 Sept 2010 12:00:56 +1200

I seem to recall that the Samurai also had the right to sign their fellow contractors neck with their swords any time they felt like it, so taking responsibility with a real signature probably didn't seem worthwhile.

Public Address

Mon, 13 Sept 2010 12:00:56 +1200

Discussion from blog post.