So, I’m a fan of various randomly old geeky stuff, such as writing letters using a nib pen and sealing them with wax and a stamp. I’ve been studying the Chinese language for the last 6 months, and I’d love to be able to get a wax sealing stamp with the character for “Horse”, since it’s the first character of my name in Chinese.
Thing is, the only place I’ve found such a stamp online goes for around $60 or $70. Was wondering if anyone knew where I might get a hold of something along these lines for a bit less.
Not Chinese, but Japanese Hanko stamps are available. The wooden ones are carved from boxwood and quite reasonable. A custom square one carved in stone starts at $29 (scroll down to 3 on the page) and would surely withstand sealing wax. They are available only in Rakkan font which, if ordered as white letter, looks like it would produce a raised character when impressed into wax.
They have a long list of western names in various kanjii equivalents, and give you the opportunity to write them for something not on those lists. I have no idea whether the your name in kanjii would be anything like it is in Chinese ideographs, though.
Well, I just want the surname, which in Chinese is “Ma” for “Horse”, and I know the character exists in Japanese. Filled out the form on the website and sent it off, so we’ll see how it goes.
Yes, it’s the same character – 馬 – in Japanese kanji. In adition, the hiragana character in Japanese for “ma” – ま – is (in my opinion) very clearly based on the same character. However, strictly speaking, neither character would be used for writing your name in Japanese, since foreign words are written in katakana.
These little ink stamp kits are fairly common at Chinese knick-knack stores, and I thought they actually had the character for each zodiac sign on them but looks like I was wrong.
I don’t know how well they might work for wax, but worth looking at, maybe.
We had a custom-made wax seal done for our wedding invites. IMHO, totally worth the $60. And, if you plan on doing this a lot, like more than once, go for the wax that you can melt in a glue gun.
Just an FYI . . . you can do whatever you want, of course, but Chinese “stamps” or “chops” typically aren’t used with wax but with red ink. If you send a letter to a Chinese friend using the method you described, they might have a good laugh about it (in a “look at the silly foreigner” kind of way). That is all.
ETA: in Taiwan you can get a cheap wooden one for around a dollar fifty US.
Well, mostly I want the stamp for sending letters to my non-Chinese friends. Getting my Chinese surname on it is a bonus as it is more distinctive then the cheesy “M” stamp I used to use before I misplaced it while moving.
[off topic]
I had a Chinese friend called Makie Ma. It wasn’t until he died and I read his obituary that I discovered that his name was Wong Loi. Everyone called him Makie.
I’d known him for years before discovering the history of Ma Ho
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Years ago, I was in Kaohsiung for several months on business. There were street vendors who would engrave “chops” with whatever symbol you wanted for a few dollars. I bought several for me and my friends. Mine is one of my favorite souvenirs.
Yes and no. In the main, foreign words are written in katakana, but names – even foreign ones – are written in kanjii. Look at the credits of a Japanese movie sometime. Virtually all of the names are in kanjii with only occasionally one in hiragana.
If you, say, immigrate to Japan, and how you write your you name becomes important, it has to be registered. You hie yourself down to the city clerk’s office (IIRC) where you and the clerk pick something out. Some opt for a syllablic approximation, others go for a translation (Japanese for ‘cobbler’ if your name is Shoemaker as an example) and yet others opt for something that looks nifty (Well, that’s what it looks like but it’s pronounced Throat-Warbler Mangrove). Believe it or not the last is the same for quite a few native Japanese – you just have to know that set of kanjii symbols is your friend’s (or someone famous’) name.
Next step is to get a hanko carved, and that little stamp becomes for all intents and purposes, your signature. Don’t lose it. In the beginning of Juzo Itami’s A Taxing Woman there is a scene where a nurse in a old-folks home is comforting an old man as he passes away. Next scene, she’s giving a yakuza character a handful of hanko and getting some cash in return. I sucked in my breath when I saw that, then explained to my girlfriend that with those they can do anything – open a bank account, start a corporation, write checks – in the name of a dead guy. As the movie developed, it was all part of a tax-evading money laundering scheme.
No, again not common. No one I know in the 20 years I’ve lived in Japan has done this. People use katakana for Western names as the rule. There may be exceptions somewhere, but it isn’t common.
hanko are used in place of signatures, but you have to supply a certification from the city or ward office that the hanko is registered. IIRC, the certifications are only valid for three months. Still, one should be very carefull with a registered hanko.
I watch a lot of Japanese movies. Foreign names in the credits tend to be written in romaji (the Latin alphabet), including all the Korean names, surprisingly, since you might think they could be written in hangul. (However, probably the average Japanese person can read romaji but not hangul).
The only standard exceptions to either romaji or katagana in foreign names are moves from Hong Kong, China, etc. which use kanji. Countries which use Chinese languages will use the Japanese names as is, but they pronounce them differently. When I talk to friends from Singapore about J-Pop singers, for example, they have to write the name down in kanji for me to understand who they are talking about. (And there is a good chance that I won’t know the name, since I’m not a J-Pop fan.)
Here’s a random example of a summary for a Bruce Willis move. Note that his name, the costar and director are all in katakana.
If you go down in the page, you can see the names written both in English and katakana.
Also, credits are different than the use of the names in movies subtitles, which tend to be in katakana. One reason is that it takes a lot of work to work out the katakana, so it get’s skipped for the best grip and all.
Newspapers universally use katakana almost exclusively for foreign names. Here’s an example of an article about the presidential race in which all the names are given in katakana.
Let me clarify that I’ve seen a couple of people who use ateji which is where you find Japanese kanji with a similar or close pronunciation to the foreign name, but I’ve never personally seen anyone do the “Shoemaker” 靴屋 （shoemaker) thing. Perhaps the poster was referring to Chinese language countries where that is more common.
If the hanko is going to be used in an official capacity, I was informed that you are not allowed to use kanji unless you are of Chinese, Korean, or Japanese descent. In other words, your family name has to be from a culture that traditionally uses characters. Hanko used for unofficial purposes can be anything you want them to be.
As TokyoPlayer said, writing foreign names in katakana is the rule, not the exception. Roman characters are so rarely used that most people don’t even know how to spell very famous celebrity names.
I just thought that I’d pipe in and note that a Japanese hanko might appear different from a Chinese chop. The two countries may right the character the same, but I believe that they have a traditional font or two that they write their stamps with, so the font will be the Japanese one rather than the Chinese.
I wonder if that is because your officially registered hanko (jitsuin) must match your registered name. My name is registered in both romaji and katakana so there wasn’t an issue when I registered mine in katakana.
Interestingly there are cases of descendents of Japanese from the US or South America, and their (Japanese) names are also written in katanana. The former president Fujimori of Peru is one example.
I believe that is the issue, that the hanko matches the transliteration on your gaikokujin tôrokusho. You wouldn’t have a problem with katakana because that’s the official form that’s acceptable for foreigners. Roman letters are not allowed, from what I remember. I know a guy of Chinese descent who was able to use the character for his family name, but since his given name was Western, that name was written in katakana.
