Okay, now that I’ve gotten the bad pun out of the way, allow me to introduce to you, the hanko. A hanko is a round Japanese signature stamp. It is used by almost everyone, and the fact that I didn’t have one until recently befuddled many a person. Some places were able to accept my initials, but I have run across a place or two that needed me to have a hanko.
The reason it took me so long to get one is that I’m not Japanese. No wait, that’s not totally right. Okay, quick language lesson. The Japanese have three writing styles: two syllabic, and one that they got from the Chinese thousands of years ago. Basically every Japanese person’s name is written out in Chinese characters. This kind of hanko is incredibly popular and can be found anywhere, even at the dollar store.
Seeing as how I’m not Japanese I couldn’t really use one of those hankos, though I may buy one before I leave (I found some Chinese characters that sound out “Koren” and translate to “Forbidden Love,” how cool is that?). I could choose to either get my last name written out in the foreign syllabic writing style, or get it written out using the alphabet. The problem was that this is not something usually done, and no one in area knew where I could get one made. That is until I complained about it to my friends and they pointed me in the right direction. It’s so annoying to find out something you’ve been looking for has been right under your nose all along.
Long story short, I have a hanko! It makes me waaaaay too happy. I want to start stamping my students’ papers with it instead of the purple hello kitty stamp I bought for that purpose.
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