etaka wrote:
> Al のメッセージ:
> 
>>etaka <etaka@yahoo.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>>>Al wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>>Foreigners can't use kanji? Obviously i am having some difficulty
>>>>believing that.
>>>
>>>I love it when people suggest things that happen to me do not happen.
>>
>>Hi, try again. :-) It sounds like you've interpreted my comments in a
>>way exaactly opposite to what they were intended to mean...
> 
> 
> Really? If not to cast skepticism on my comments or make light of the
> experiences of myself or those of any others plainly posting they are
> not allowed to use their desired rendition of name, just what is your
> intention?
> 
> 
>>As a foreigner who has been using kanji for his name for years, i am
>>entitled to consider the information about supposedly existing "rules"
>>suspect. :-)
> 
> 
> Then perhaps you would like to explain the names used on ALL of my
> official documents, as well as maybe six postal savings and bank
> account books, or the experiences of any others in this thread and
> elsewhere who have posted to the effect that (non-Asian) foreigners get
> katakana used for their names/aren't allowed to use kanji. I certainly
> did not ask these people to write my name that way, and in fact gave
> them the given kanji for my name when writing out any forms. And unlike
> in your case, my name does have valid kanji which I was born with. I
> simply am not permitted to use them. BTW, ALL my hanko are my name(s)
> in kanji.

1. "All foreigners are not allowed to use kanji" is different from "Eric 
Takabayashi is not allowed to use kanji".  Who knows what laws, other 
than their own whim, Japanese officials follow on a day-to-day basis?

2. You guys seem to be talking about different contexts anyway.

> It's not about entertainment. The way media, particularly reputable
> news, renders a person's name, is revealing, as when foreigners of
> Japanese ancestry with Japanese names such as Kosugi or Yamaguchi, have
> their names put into katakana. For example: I am curious how former
> Peruvian President Fujimori had his name rendered in the news prior to
> being recognized as a Japanese citizen. A Yahoo! search suggests his
> name before being *publicly* recognized as a citizen (he was officially
> registered as a Japanese at birth by his father at the Consulate) was
> of course, in katakana. (A stranger question is why people continue to
> use that katakana name when they know he is legally a citizen. Because
> he also holds Peruvian citizenship? Because he cannot speak Japanese?
> Because it's how he was registered or what he asked for? Simply because
> it's how they've always known him? Because he is not "really" Japanese,
> except to keep him from being deported to face prosecution back in
> Peru?)

Sounds like he better give Debito a call.

-- 
Curt Fischer