Photo/Illutration Hu Youping was fatally stabbed while protecting a Japanese mother and her young child from a knife attack. (Provided by the Chinese security authorities of Suzhou)

More than 20 years ago, an American journalist I knew told me that Japanese were the only people in the world who couldn’t understand a certain joke that was circulating in the U.S. media at the time.

It was a pun on the name of China’s soon-to-be president, Hu Jintao, who was a virtual stranger outside Beijing.

“Who’s Hu?” everyone started quipping--except many Japanese who shook their heads, uncomprehending and not getting the joke at all.

I was acutely reminded anew then that, only in Japan, Hu’s name was being pronounced as “Ko Kinto,” whereas he was none other than Hu Jintao in his country as well as in most parts of the world.

I believe everyone’s “real name” ought to be honored. The Asahi Shimbun and some other Japanese news organizations make a point of adding katakana phonetic syllables to the kanji-written names of Chinese VIPs.

However, that is easier said than done--and sometimes given up on--because some Chinese pronunciations are practically impossible to transliterate accurately into Japanese.

On July 4, exactly 40 years ago, then-Foreign Minister Shintaro Abe instructed the ministry to start pronouncing all Chinese and South Korean names as they are pronounced in their respective countries.

With South Korean names, the directive was immediately acted upon. As for Chinese names, however, some are still being treated as special cases because of various difficulties.

On the matter of how foreign names should be read, China is actually in the same boat as Japan. In China, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida’s surname is pronounced “Antian.”

Perhaps this goes to show the complexity of the relationship between Japan and China--two countries that share the same kanji culture.

There are times when, out of respect for someone’s name, I really want Asahi readers to know how the name sounds in the person’s native country.

A Japanese mother and her child were attacked at a school bus stop in the Chinese city of Suzhou by a man armed with a knife, and a Chinese woman who tried to protect them was fatally stabbed.

Her name is pronounced Hu Youping.

—The Asahi Shimbun, July 5

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Vox Populi, Vox Dei is a popular daily column that takes up a wide range of topics, including culture, arts and social trends and developments. Written by veteran Asahi Shimbun writers, the column provides useful perspectives on and insights into contemporary Japan and its culture.

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