(Tokyo Bus-Reise 5)Basics of Japanese Politics: Names
(Fondations de la politique japonaise: les noms)
First, please double-click the image below.
When discussing Japanese politics in English, there is one big trouble: names.
Almost every Japanese noun, including names, is usually expressed with Kanji letters in Japan, though some nouns such as a "hamburger" is expressed with Kana letters (which are Japanese alphabets Chinese do not use, while the Japanese Kanji system and the Chinese Kanji system are almost the same).
Kanji is ideogram. For example, a letter "F" has no meaning; it is just a symbol, though, indicating a specific sound.
But, for example, the letter "Fuku" in a name "Fukuda" is expressed by one Kanji character that means "blessing or good luck." The Kanji letter "da" of "Fukuda" is expressed by one Kanji character that means a "rice field," though its standard sound is "ta."
Therefore, the surname of Japan's new Prime Minister Mr. "Yasuo Fukuda" is expressed by two Kanji letters which are combined together to mean a "blessed rice field."
Of course, the meaning of those Kanji letters has no special effect in dealing with Mr. Fukuda in any business; but it carries a kind of image or impression when thinking about the person Mr. Fukuda.
In other words, the English expression "Fukuda" is cold and meager, killing every expected cultural image and impression on his personality and humanity in dealing with Mr. Fukuda.
But, writing "Fukuda" in Japanese using two Kanji letters invoke a kind of human imagination.
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Now you have learnt a basic in dealing with names of Japanese politicians as a gambit of learning Japanese politics.
Indeed, Japanese use Kanji letters (ideogram) and two types of Kana letters (Japanese alphabets Chinese do not use) in expressing their names or anything else in these 1000 years, significance of which has never been realized by elites in the U.K. and the U.S. who cannot appreciate any difference in depth and width of civilization between Japan and, say, indigenous Americans communities and nations, while it is one of keys to understanding the success of Japan in the modern era no Latin American countries have been able to achieve.
Conversely, it is rather a miracle that the U.K. and the U.S. with a single letter system, the alphabet, could succeed in the modern era.
Anyway, politicians in any communitiy should live up to his name as well as his family name, good or bad.
(As Kanji is very classic, nowadays some parents like to use Kata-Kana letters in naming their baby, especially when the baby is a girl.
In addition, names of foreigners are, if they are not from Kanji culture regions, usually expressed using Kata-Kana letters in Japan.
Truly, nowadays, you cannot tell if a Japanese girl with a first name expressed in Kata-Kana is truly of Japanese origin or if so but with dual citizenship, while such redundancy may have a significant meaning.
For your reference, my name is officially expressed all with Kanji letters almost every Japanese can discern, which might conversely make me love a Kata-Kana name.
Do you want a Kanji or Kana-expressed name, though Jesus Christ had not?)
"...He comes triumphant and victorious, but humble and riding on a donkey..."