Steve wrote:

> Is it corrupt? Is it bloody-minded nitpicking? Or is it simply
> that my friend is talking out of her arse?

Or, perhaps, none of the above. I think there is something to what your
friend says - a package with no surname in the address *is* at risk of not
being delivered - but it falls into a grey area, so it's not really possible
to say with certainty what will happen to it.

The first thing is that the family name *is* an important factor for the
Japanese post office when delivering mail. This is because one of the
wonders of Japanese efficiency is that if you change your address your mail
will be forwarded (at no cost!) to your new address for a period of (I
think) a year. Obviously, this can only be done by checking the addressee's
family name.

If the family name is missing it presents the post office with a problem.
How that problem gets handled would, I suspect, depend on the
postman/sorting office concerned. Some might open it, fearing it could be
some kind of hoax or even a security risk, others might play safe and return
it to the sender, others might crosscheck to see if there is someone living
in the house with that given name, others might ring the doorbell and ask,
and in some cases it might slip through the net and get delivered normally.

This is all off the top of my head, of course. I haven't checked the post
office small print on this.

--
John
http://rarebooksinjapan.com