Novelist, technologist, photographer and resident of Japan, Michael Werneburg, discusses the frustrations of living with a foreign name in Japan. This guest post is an expansion of an article on his own website that details his struggles with living with a foreign name in an English-speaking country.
Katakana Blues
My surname is “Werneburg”, and the name just doesn’t work in Japanese. It originates in the forested heart of Germany where its pronunciation is obvious even if it is by no means an everyday name. But Germany’s rolling hills and rolling r’s are a long way from Japan, and it’s here that the import—like an invader species—causes some chaos.
The first problem for foreigners like me is that the Japanese language has a range of sounds that is more limited than in our European languages. Whereas English has some twenty vowels and twenty-four consonants, Japanese has only five vowel sounds and nineteen consonant sounds. Further restricting the pronunciation in Japanese is the use of a syllabary rather than an alphabet. These syllables combine a consonant and a vowel together, so that when you want to use a consonant you have to follow it with a vowel sound that fits one of the available syllables. The ‘n’ sound sometimes stands alone, but the rest must always incorporate a vowel.
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Salarymen are the Japanese corporate livestock. They are the thousands of faceless, suited, white collar office-workers. Dutiful conformists whose lives revolve entirely around work. They work long hours and when their day is over, they are often found spending their evenings in a local izakaya or karaoke bar plying themselves full of sake or beer or shōchū until the last train.
The following collection features 10 of the best publicly sleeping salarymen photos. Those who made the last train, and those who didn’t.
1. The Suicide Pact
The man in the foreground lies on the yellow navigation stripe used by blind people probably not realising it is for the vision impaired, not the blind drunk. Taken by jhtham in Shibuya at 5.00am on a Saturday morning.
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UPDATE: This edition of the Japan Blog Matsuri has now been published. All of the fantastic submissions can be viewed on the Famous Japanese People post.
Welcome to the theme announcement for the January 2010 edition of the Japan Blog Matsuri! This month’s edition introduces a special matsuri twist, a whopping ¥10,000 (roughly US$100) is up for grabs in a ‘matsuri cash giveaway’ and will be awarded to the two best submissions of this month’s matsuri. That’s ¥5,000 (roughly US$50) for each winner! And the best thing is, everyone is invited to participate.
How will the two best submissions be judged, I hear you ask? All is revealed right here in this post so keep reading to learn more.
Before we get into the specifics of the instructions and guidelines of this month’s matsuri, a big up to Dumb Otaku for hosting the previous Japan Blog Matsuri on Technology.
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Billy
lina
aidan bob
C Ohara
chris
Goukaseishi
Hello Beautiful
Japan Australia
Jen
Ken Seeroi
