Tuesday, April 28, 2009

O namae wa?

He kept staring at me. What's so special? :)
Each person can only register one seal to avoid fraud things.  Starting as lowest as 100Yen to the most expensive one, it depends on the quality.

Yesterday while wandering the area behind my apaato I saw this little shop selling all seal stuff. Inkan or signature seal is a personal seal used in place of signature. There are registered seals (jitsuin) for official document purpose and private seals (mitomein). Is it interesting to have our own stamp-seal like those Japanese, Korean and Chinese people do?. 
Yuri San : O namae wa? (What's your name?)
Hiro San: Hiro desu (Hiro)

9 comments:

Babzy.B said...

Very nice ,i'd like to have one ;)

Tall Gary said...

I like what you are doing in this and the previous posting. We can see a world and culture we can’t experience in our home countries.

The manhole covers are colorful and artistic, yet they serve a quite mundane purpose.

About hankos: Like you say, they serve as signatures that are legally binding. I know of a man’s wife who took the hanko, drained their bank account, moved out of the apartment with an infant and left the man, her soon to be divorced husband, penniless.

Maybe the cat found you attractive. Or maybe it was near meal time and you looked like a tasty morsel. Nope, looking at the cat again I can see it is practicing its hypnosis skills. "You are getting sleepy. You are getting sleepy. You will bring me a can of tuna. You will bring me a can of tuna, now!"

VP said...

This is really something different: this use of the seals is fascinating.
This is probably due to the peculiarity of the exotic writing: I have no interest in office rubber stamps, because I know well what are they for.
The cat looks surprised, may be for the camera?

Julie ScottsdaleDailyPhoto.com said...

I love these shots. The cat is a great addition and the black and white fits right in. Thanks for your comments about the Frank Lloyd Wright Series. I was hoping it would be of interest to people. I have a few more days and then I will move on to different Chihuly, cactus and desert photos. I was in Morocco for the past two weeks so I wanted to make sure there was a series of something that would be informative and different for people to enjoy while I was away. Morocco was very interesting and, surprisingly, very French. A very different experience than Egypt or Jordan. It was a quite enjoyable trip. I will spend the next week catching up on everyone's websites and enjoying their photos. Thanks for your comments on my site. I have read them all.

Unknown said...

This is so cool! I've never seen such a display. Fantastic!

Emma Bond said...

I love your photos! The cat shot is great, we have a cat book from japan which shows endless photos of cats and Japanese furniture... not sure why! Love your blog.

NikonSniper said...

henny these photos are great ... i also really like treasure hunt. very interesting. love the orange and blackish blue cover ... it also looks great shot off center.
great stuff! see you are doing great! wish i was young like you.
nikonsniper

henny said...

Babzy, you can have one, but be prepared to have your name written in Japanese alphabets which sometimes turn out to be very different from your original name.

Gary, thank you. You must have a great experience back in Japan. I wish I can bring something new in my every post. Sorry about the man, was it years ago? And about the cat. Just took shower before going photo hunting :)). How come I smelled tuna?...

VP, the cat thought I was an alien coming to his shop. I was probably the very different person ever came there( with a camera) :).

Julie, cats are probably not favorite pets for most Japanese. I rarely see them take stroll with cats. Dogs are common.

Emma, cats and furniture? Now that's weird. I'm gonna find the answer :)).

JM, absolutely cool, hehehe...

Stephen, as a person with 30-year experience in photography, never say you are old!!!. Share some photo tips, please...:).

joo said...

Hey, it's amazing - I wonder how my name would be written in Japanese alphabet?
As for your series, never seen anything ike this before:)well done