Japanese

The following is a conversation between two men in their twenties. While discussing the demeanor of some of the people they know, the men in their own way give one answer to the question “What does it mean to be Japanese.”

Excerpt 1

山田： アメリカンスクールに行ってた子はなんかもう、日本語もちろんできるけど、性格 は完全に

渡辺： アメリカ人？

山田： うん、もう、我が強くて

渡辺： あそうなの（笑）なんかさ英語ではさ、言ってもいいかもしれないけど、日本語で そのまま話すと変な感じになる、その我が、我が強い部分

山田： そうだね。でも彼女なんか性格が、まあ、そういうキャラクターってみんなわかっ てるから、もうなんか「あの子は、あの子」って感じだった。

渡辺： よっちゃんは純日本人なの？

山田： よっちゃんは日本人だね。

Yamada: Amerikan sukūru ni itteta ko ha nanka mō, nihongo mochiron dekiru kedo, seikaku ha kanzen ni

Watanabe: Amerika-jin?

Yamada: Un, mou, ga ga tsuyokute

Watanabe: A sō na no? (laughter). Nanka sa, eigo deha sa, itte mo ii kamoshirenai kedo, nihongo de sono mama hanasu to hen na kanji ni naru, sono ga ga ga ga tsuyoi bubun.

Yamada: Sō da ne. Demo kanojo nanka seikaku ga, maa, sō iu kyarakutā tte minna wakatteru kara, mou nanka “Ano ko, ano ko” tte kanji datta.

Watanabe: Yocchan ha jun nihon-jin na no?

Yamada: Yocchan ha nihon-jin da ne.

Yamada: The girl who went to American school was, um, of course she could speak Japanese, but her personality was completely like

Watanabe: an American?

51 Yamada: Yeah, so self-centered.

Watanabe: Is that right? Maybe you can talk like that in English, but if you say the same thing in Japanese in becomes weird, that selfish part.

Yamada: Right. But everybody understood that that was her personality, she was that kind of character, so it was like “That girl, that girl.”

Watanabe: And Yocchan, is he pure Japanese?

Yamada: Yes, Yocchan is Japanese.

The speakers are comparing American and Japanese nationalities, but clearly not in the legal sense of citizenship. Yamada describes a girl who, despite being proficient in the Japanese language, did not act Japanese. Watanabe chimes in by criticizing the girl’s Japanese, not for being incorrect but for being inappropriately assertive. The girl in question seems to have acquired reputation because of that, as referring to her simply as “that girl” was reportedly enough to identify her. Therefore it seems that according to the speakers “being Japanese” means “avoiding displays of ego.” In principle it’s possible that the girl’s assertiveness stood out not just because of the culture, but also because of her gender, as girls’ self-assurance is more likely to be stigmatized as inappropriate compared to similar behavior from boys. However, the speakers do not give any indication that their evaluation was affected by gender in this particular case.

The next conversation is between a man and a woman, both in their late twenties:

Excerpt 2

鈴木： 名前がいいよね、「なつ」って。あれがなんかいい名前だと思う。

田中： 本当？私ちょっとコンプレックスある、自分で 鈴木： あそう？

田中： うん、なんかね。

鈴木： いいじゃん、あれ。

田中： いい、すごく、周りの人はねみんな「いい」って言ってくれるんですよ。でも自分 的になんか、その、小さいときからやっぱり「なんとか子」とか、いるじゃないですか？そう

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いう、そういう三文字じゃないからなんか嫌だ、みたいな （笑） 昔はすごいあった。

鈴木： 昔はね。でも今はいい。大人になるといいよね。

田中： ままともな名前というか、ちょっとかっこいい。

鈴木： ユニバーサル、ユニバーサルデザインだしさ （笑）

田中： ユニバーサルじゃない、ユニセックスでしょう。

鈴木： ユニセックスでユニバーサルじゃない？「なつ」って、言いやすい。

田中： 言いやすい、言いやすい。確かに。そうそうそうそう。

鈴木： 「ひろゆき」って言える？

田中： あ、なんて言うんですか、みんな外国人？

鈴木： 「ゆき」。

田中： ああ、「ゆき」。うん、「ゆき」ね。そうそう、「なつ」言いやすい。

鈴木： 字の、字面もいいし

田中： でね、言うったことあるかな、これ、「なつ」っていう名前、珍しいじゃないですか？

この字で、しかも。「なつこ」とか「なつみ」じゃなくて。今まで一度も会ったことなかったの に、大学に入って、同じ専修にね、一個上の男の子、「なつ君」。

鈴木： ああ。

田中： ひとつしたの女の子、「なつちゃん」。

鈴木： ああ。

田中： 三代、三年連続で「なつ」という名前がいたの、おんなじ字で。マジ恐怖と思って。

Suzuki: Namae ga ii yo ne. “Natsu” tte. Are ga nanka ii namae da to omou.

Tanaka: Honto? Watashi chotto konpurekkusu aru, jibun de.

Suzuki: A sō?

Tanaka: Un. Nanka, ne.

Suzuki: Ii jan, are.

Tanaka: Ii, sugoku, mawari no hito ha ne, minna “ii” tte itte kurerundesu yo.

Demo jibunteki ni nanka, sono, chiisai toki kara yappari “nantoka ko” toka, iru ja nai desu ka? Sō iu, sō iu sanmoji ja nai kara nanka iya da, mitai na.

(laughter) Mukashi ha sugoi atta.

Suzuki: Mukashi ha ne. Demo, ima ha ii. Otona ni naru to ii yo ne.

Tanaka: Ma matomo na namae, to iu ka, chotto kakkoii.

Suzuki: Yunibāsaru, yunibāsaru dezain da shi sa (warai).

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Tanaka: Yunibāsaru ja nai, yunisekkusu deshō.

Suzuki: Yunisekkusu de yunibāsaru ja nai? “Natsu” tte, iiyasui.

Tanaka: Iiyasui, iiyasui. Tashika ni. Sōsōsōsō.

Suzuki: “Hiroyuki” tte ieru?

Tanaka: A, nan te iundesu ka, minna gaikokujin?

Suzuki: “Yuki.”

Tanaka: A “Yuki,” un, “Yuki” ne. Sōsō, “Natsu” iiyasui.

Suzuki: Ji no, jizura mo ii shi.

Tanaka: De ne, iutta koto aru kana, kore, “Natsu” tte iu namae, mezurashii ja nai desu ka? Kono ji de ne, shika mo. “Natsuko” toka “Natsumi” ja nakute. Ima made ichido mo atta koto nakatta no ni, daigaku ni haitte, onaji senshū ni ne, ikko ue no otoko no ko, “Natsu-kun.”

Suzuki: Aa.

Tanaka: Hitotsu shita no onna no ko, “Natsu-chan.”

Suzuki: Aa.

Tanaka: Sandai, sannen renzoku de “Natsu” to iu namae ga ita no, onnaji ji de.

Maji kyōfu to omotte.

Suzuki: Your first name is good. “Natsu.” I kind of think that’s a good name.

Tanaka: Really? It’s a bit of a complex of mine.

Suzuki: Oh yeah?

Tanaka: Yeah. Kind of.

Suzuki: I think it’s good.

Tanaka: People around me are kind enough to say that it’s really good. But personally, uh, since I was a child, there were those whose name ended with ko, right? My name was not like that, not written with three characters, so I was like “I hate it.” (laughter) In the past I really felt like that.

Suzuki: In the past, but now it’s good. When you grow up it’s good.

Tanaka: A proper name, or, uh, a bit cool.

Suzuki: It’s universal, universal design. (laughter) Tanaka: Not universal, it’s unisex, isn’t it.

Suzuki: Universal and unisex, right? “Natsu” is easy to say.

Tanaka: It is, it is. You’re right. Yeah yeah yeah.

Suzuki: Can you say “Hiroyuki”?

54 Tanaka: What do all foreigners call you?

Suzuki: “Yuki.”

Tanaka: Ah, “Yuki,” yeah, right, “Yuki.” Yeah yeah, “Natsu” is easy to say.

Suzuki: The character for it looks good, too.

Tanaka: And then, did I tell you before? “Natsu” is a rare name, isn’t it? Even more so if it’s written with this character. Not “Natsuko,” not “Natsumi” or something like that. I hadn’t met anyone else with this name, and then I entered university and in the same major there is a boy one year older than me,

“Natsu-kun.”

Suzuki: Oh.

Tanaka: A girl one year younger, “Natsu-chan.”

Suzuki: Oh.

Tanaka: Three generations, three years in a row with the same name, written with the same character. Seriously, I thought that was scary.

In this conversation, the speakers attempt to evaluate what makes a “good name.” Besides the briefly mentioned visual appeal of the ideograms used to write the name, three main qualities are taken up as potential benchmarks of a desirable first name: popularity, gender associations, and phonetical simplicity.

In the beginning of the discussion, Natsu Tanaka explains why she didn’t like her name as a child and why she still has mixed feelings about it to this day. The reason was that other girls in her circles had names similar to hers, but followed by another element: ko. Names with this element, such as Natsuko, were more common, but also more feminine, since ko is only added to names for girls. It is not clear which attribute Tanaka was more envious of, but in any case what she says exposes the familiar desire to fit in within one’s peer group. Her unusual first name felt like a hindrance frustrating such efforts, so she resented it.

Suzuki acknowledges that Natsu’s name may have made her life difficult as a child, but points out that in adulthood it is not a problem anymore.

On the contrary, the name being “universal and unisex” is something to be pleased with. The universality is suggested by Suzuki, by which he means that the name is practical. On the other hand, the observation that it is unisex

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comes from Natsu herself. This characteristic used to make her feel less included in the girls’ group, but now she seems to see it in a more positive light.

She describes it with the word kakkoii “cool,” which refers to a kind of attractiveness that is relatively masculine and mature when compared to the attractiveness of some other possible evaluations for a name, such as kawaii

“cute.” Another adjective Natsu gives is matomo na “proper,” “solid,” which suggests something or someone well developed, reliable and capable of standing up to scrutiny. Although she used to envy children whose name included ko 子, it seems that she now thinks that the addition of this element to her name would deprive it of some positive features she did not notice in the past.

Such discussions about given names would scarcely be possible in Polish, as names in the Polish culture are much more strictly segregated into male and female. According to the Polish law, the name given to a child should point towards one gender, and the civil servants in charge of registering names have the power to refuse following through with the procedure if they deem the name to be gender ambiguous, or “unisex” like Natsu’s. Still, a recent questionnaire shows that generally citizens do not find this to be an issue, because when asked “If you could give any¹⁴ name to your child, what would it be?” they still reply with a traditional gendered name, and there is no overlap between the 20 most popular names for girls and a similar list for boys.

The “universality,” or conversational practicality of Natsu is the other yardstick of a good name. Both speakers agree on the value of this quality.

Suzuki praises his interlocutor’s first nameas an example of “universal design,”

by which he means a name that is easily pronounced (and perhaps also quickly memorized) by non-Japanese speakers. He contrasts it with his own name Hiroyuki, which is twice as long, leading foreigners to truncate it and call him by a nickname derived from the second half, Yuki. Tanaka’s first name is then complimented because it is convenient to use and facilitates international communication.

What follows is a vivid demonstration of how suffixes added to names in Japanese serve to convey information about gender and the relation between

14 Emphasis added.

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the referent and the speaker. Tanaka talks about her university years, when she met two other people with the same name as hers, even written with the same character. One Natsu was a boy, and the speaker marks him with the suffix –kun, predominantly used towards males, especially those younger (or not much older) than the speaker. The other was a younger girl, and she receives –chan, with implications of femininity, immaturity, or both. This creates a distinction between their names and the name of the speaker, which has so far kept appearing in the conversation without any suffixes at all, whether used by Suzuki or Tanaka herself. A first name without any additions would suggest a very high degree of intimacy if used as a reference to a person, but in this case the lack of any suffixes can instead be explained by the fact that Natsu, as appears in the conversation excerpt, is not so much a reference to the woman who bears the name, but rather to the name itself as a linguistic unit. This allowed Suzuki to omit any honorific elements that might have been otherwise expected.

ドキュメント内 Kyushu University Institutional Repository (ページ 58-64)