VOX POPULI: Use of honorifics complex at times and not always appropriate
When I started out as a rookie reporter on the local police beat, I was initially addressed as “kisha-san” (Mr./Ms. reporter), not by my name.
I told myself this was something I should just live with as a good sport, since I was still a virtual “nobody” in the community.
After I had covered the beat on a daily basis for some time, my appellation changed to “Asahi-san,” signaling which newspaper employed me.
And when the local law enforcement community finally got to know me by my name, I was addressed by my surname with the honorific “chan,” a term of endearment.
These memories from 35 years ago came flooding back when the Justice Ministry on Feb. 15 announced a series of prison reforms in response to the discovery of repeated inmate abuse by correctional officers at Nagoya Prison.
According to a third-party committee established after the scandal came to light, prison guards before World War II addressed inmates by their numbers, while most postwar guards switched to addressing them by their names without an honorific.
But at Nagoya Prison, the committee found, inmates were referred to contemptuously as “choeki” (cons) and “yatsura” (those losers) by guards in informal conversations.
How one calls someone depends on how one intends to relate with that person. Those Nagoya Prison officers, who completely ignored the inmates’ human rights, were said to have acted as they did “to vent their frustration.”
This gave me a glimpse of a deep darkness that exists in an organization that is supposed to help convicted criminals to rehabilitate themselves.
The reforms call for the end of the tradition of inmates addressing correctional officers respectfully as “sensei” (teacher) and switching to more egalitarian appellations such as “shokuin-san” (Mr./Ms. Officer) or “tanto-san” (Mr./Ms. Representative).
The fact that the prison guards were being addressed as “sensei” is shocking in itself. How people call one another can often determine or emphasize their “superior-inferior” relationship.
Unlike “kun” and “chan,” the honorific “san,” which derived from “sama” during the Edo Period (1603-1867), can be used universally, irrespective of the person’s gender and age.
I suggest that the political community adopt “san” uniformly and stop addressing lawmakers as “sensei” and calling anyone taking the Diet floor by their name plus “kun.”
--The Asahi Shimbun, Feb. 17
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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.