Signatures and Writing Systems.

The sheer foreignness of Japan is sometimes overwhelming.  Our first week here we had to begin the process to get our alien registration cards.  That same day we went to the hanko store.  I had never heard of hankos.  They are small circular stamps that are your legal signature.  Do you want to see my John Hancock in Japanese?

That's it.  That is my signature here.  What happens if you need to sign a document and don't have your hanko?  You have to go get your hanko.  Some of our paperwork couldn't be finished until we had this little guy. 

You always use red ink.  Historically only samurai used red ink, but today everyone does.  If you are wondering why it doesn't have English letters you have to understand Japanese writing.

Japan uses three writing systems.  The one you are probably familiar with is the Chinese characters known as kanji.  There are tens of thousands of kanji, but the Japanese Ministry of Education has defined 1,945 as the set for daily use.  Kanji change pronunciation based on context, one kanji is usually built from several other kanji, and then you can have two kanji together to form a single word.  I know the kanji for mizu (water). 

After the kanji there is the hiragana alphabet.  There are 46 basic syllables in hiragana, plus combinations and glides.  Hiragana is for Japanese words other than the 1,945 kanji words, and for students to spell out all Japanese words until they learn the kanji.  That writing on my hanko, that's not hiragana. 

It's katakana.  Katakana is an exact duplicate of hiragana, but with different symbols.  This alphabet is used for words adopted from foreign cultures, such as Dutch, French, and English.  They also don't use spaces between words.  And certain symbols have multiple pronunciations based on whether they are part of a word or particles (brace yourselves; there will sometimes be grammar words).  All three systems are used often used in the same sentence!  This image is a fair example of what the page of a book might look like.

Japanese syllables are always either a vowel, or a consanant followed by a vowel.  The word "salad" in Japanese is "sa-la-da."  Adopted words often get extra syllables when the extra vowels are added.  My name is pronounced "ne-i-to."  Those are the three symbols on my hanko.  Easy enough huh?