Pickles

joejones, to the white courtesy phone please.

joejones

Since I was paged...

Calling yourself "-san" is an obvious faux pas which no reasonably educated Japanese person would commit. The honorifics get more difficult, though, in an organizational context. For instance, you have to call your boss "-san" internally, but refer to them without a suffix when you're in front of a customer or client, and of course the customer or client is always "-sama." And when it gets *really* awkward is when somebody switches from being a co-worker to being a client, or vice versa.

On a tangent -- in the legal profession, where I work, there is an added level of complication surrounding the title "sensei," which everyone seems to use slightly differently; e.g. some people call all lawyers "sensei," some Japanese lawyers only call other Japanese lawyers "sensei" while calling foreign lawyers "san," others will call foreign lawyers "sensei" only if they are admitted to practice in Japan, some will refer to more senior lawyers than them as "sensei" and to more junior lawyers as "san," some law firms have banned the use of the "sensei" title so as to avoid offense, some lawyers don't like being called "sensei," and clients are all over the map in terms of whether and when they use "sensei," "sama" and "san." I don't think that teachers or doctors have this problem...

aster

Just curious but when it comes to time are Japanese people used to the 24-hr format like 19:00?

RichardInSF

Pretty much with an extra little twist: sometimes they go beyond 23:59. For example, a bar that closes at 2am, will post their closing time as 26:00.

jib71

24-hr format is well understood. It's commonly used when talking about train departures and times of events.

If you want to sound quite precise and meticulous you could use 24-hr format in everyday conversation. It's a bit "stiff", though. When speaking more casually, you can use 12-hr format with modifiers like - "gozen" (before noon), "gogo" (after noon), "asa" (morning), "yugata" (early evening), "yoru" (evening), "yonaka" (middle of the night).

AlwaysAisle

Officially the law was passed in 1873 (明治6年) to use European time system. When Japan opened the country in 1854 after closing the country for 300 years, most modern Western thing came from Europe where 24 hrs. system were being used. However, initially 24 hrs. system were mainly used by Japanese military and not much by general public in Japan.

On 1942 (昭和17年) Japanese National Railroad (predecessor of JR, and was government entity back then) adopted 24 hrs. system to avoid confusion between 7 a.m. vs.7 p.m., etc. Then it was quickly adopted by general public in Japan.

jib71

Love this. It reminds me of this.

KPT

This is also the format for television, and some transit schedules

robyng

Why are there "Newspaper Holidays" (today is one of them)? Robyn

hailstorm

I've seen as high as 32:00 in the wild.

AlwaysAisle

This date back when newspapers were pretty much only news media for public. Newspapers are published every day, including Sundays and holidays. To provide day off for newspaper media, including print shops, local delivery center, etc. Japanese newspaper came up with newspaper holiday, which happens 10 time every years. The major newspaper came to unwritten agreement so that all major newspaper will take newspaper holiday on same day.

joejones

A better question would be why most of the major Japanese papers still put out wafer-thin evening editions.

hailstorm

I wouldn't shell out over 100 yen for a regular newspaper, but I'll occasionally pay 50 yen evening edition for the train ride home.

AlwaysAisle

It is tradition, something still goes on in Japan.

I sound like Fiddler on the Roof.

RichardInSF

Funny, you don't LOOK Jewish!

(Don't get upset, folks, that's a joke. I don't really know what Always looks like.)