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Japanese Visa Policy

0 Comments Published January 14th, 2009 in Blog.

0 Comments Published January 23rd, 2008 in Blog.

You may recognise the ’san’ (さん) I added to the end of your name, the
closest we have to this in English is ‘Mr’ or ‘Ms/Miss/Mrs’, it’s a
polite suffix. You may not know that one cannot refer to oneself using ’san’
e.g.

Hi I’m Chris San - wrong
Hi I’m Chris - right

Japanese companies also have a similar suffix ‘onchuu’ (御中), so for
instance the address on a letter one would start The Artists Web onchuu (御中)
this is perhaps similar to “Messers The Artist Web”.

Similarly with ’san’, a company cannot referrerence itself using onchuu
(御中).

Now, the interesting part of this anecdote is the situation of using an
SAE (stamped/self address envelope).

So let’s say The Artists Web is sending you an application form and SAE
so you can return it easily. As The Artists Web cannot refer to
themselves using the polite onchuu (御中) suffix, they must omit this
and perhaps use ‘yuki’ (行き) meaning simply ‘to’. However you would be
rude (or too casual) if you sent a letter to them without the polite
suffix. So what happens? The solution is that you must cross out the
‘yuki’ (行き) and replace it with ‘onchuu’ (御中)!

I think that is just a simply marvelous example of the phenonmena of
Japan, the Country that uses cutting edge technology to facilitate it’s
the correct execution of millenia old etiquette and custom.

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