Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Japan/Archive/December 2007

message: Hello... please read my lengthy comments at Good article reassessment. I'm truly sorry — I just can't in good conscience allow the GA of Flag of Japan to stand uncontested, with so much crucial information omitted. I will be happy to retract the GAR if all info (properly sourced!) is added.  Ling.Nut 13:16, 1 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I'll take charge, since it was my mess to begin with. User:Zscout370 (Return Fire) 20:37, 2 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Passed GAR, but any and all help will be appreciated. User:Zscout370 (Return Fire) 05:01, 10 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[WP:GAR|Good article reassessment]]  of [[Flag of Japan]] (may lose GA status) 

message: I've been bothered for some time now about the lack of an article on Wikipedia concerning censorship in Japan, such as Article 175 of the Japanese penal code, self-censorship on Japanese television stations, or even an article on Censorship in Japan itself. I have such made a short stub on the latter, with hope it will expand into a well-written article. As the Japanese government seems to be chancing its stance on things again, I feel this is a rather important topic that should be covered in more detail. Unfortunately, much of this information appears to be hard to get in the English language. As such, I encurage the help of other editors on this topic. -Aknorals 07:49, 2 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Censorship in Japan 

message: What is it? I want to add this to the article Japanese Wikipedia. (By "right" I mean what the style guide says, whose romanization section is rather cryptical to me.) -- Taku 10:58, 2 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The "right" Hepburn romanization is, boringly enough, wikipedia. Jpatokal 17:10, 2 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Unless you are using the  template, in which case the third part of the template would contain "Uikipedia". Very minor, but important, difference. (^_^) ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 02:00, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Err, no, ウィキペディア is wikipedia.  ウイキペディア would be uikipedia, but that's not how it's spelled.  Jpatokal (talk) 03:16, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: They are both pronounced exactly the same way, and romanized the same way. There is no "wi" in the Revised Hepburn romanization used on Wikipedia. ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 05:56, 10 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Right romanization of ウィキペディア 

message: Continental Airlines aired a film called "A Litre of Tears" on a flight from Houston to Narita: http://www.continental.com/web/en-US/content/travel/inflight/entertainment/films/mca_grid_200705.pdf
Is this a different film from the TV drama "One Litre of Tears" ? Or is this pasted-together episodes? What is this? WhisperToMe 20:35, 2 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: There is a film version(2004) too. Who played the heroine? If by Sawajiri Erika, it's the TV drama (2005). If by Asae Onishi, it's the movie. Judging from the picture on the Continental page, it looks like the movie version. Oda Mari (talk) 05:05, 3 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Definitely the movie version. Look at the small picture of mother and the daughter. This is the TV drama DVD Oda Mari (talk) 05:56, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

text: Wonderful! I'm going to expand it soon. Oda Mari (talk) 04:50, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  This version of "A Litre of Tears" 

message: Please come participate in the discussion here. Thanks. ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 04:43, 3 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Discussion about image used in [[:Template:Japanese ethnicity]] 

message: Chinese swords has been nominated for deletion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Chinese swords 132.205.99.122 (talk) 22:33, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Japanese swords has been co-nominated in this deletion, as well. Anyone up to fixing up the Japanese swords article? I think it would work best as a disambiguation page if moved to Japanese sword instead. ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 02:03, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

text: Both articles were kept. ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 05:57, 10 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Chinese swords 

message: User:Cgingold removed some articles from :Category:Government of Tokyo, among them Tokyo Metro, Ueno Zoo, Ueno Zoo Monorail and Tokyo Waterfront Area Rapid Transit. Tokyo Metro is operated by the government of Tokyo, as are the others, but it does not govern Tokyo. Maybe we can establish a separate category for such operations. Then we can use Tokyo government for bodies that govern Tokyo (legislature, governor etc.) and a new category for administrative functions of Tokyo's government (subway, zoo, public schools and universities etc.). Any suggestions? Fg2 (talk) 23:51, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Tokyo Metro is operated by Tokyo Metro Co.,Ltd., which is a  , a kind of government-owned corporation, jointly owned by the Japanese government and the Tokyo metropolitan government. --Saintjust (talk) 01:23, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Category:Government of Tokyo 

message: A number of editors have begun work recently on adding a section on the environment to the main Japan article. ... I regret that I don't have any real sources to work from other than my own memory and such, but I would like to call for others' help in making this section, along with the article on Environmental protection in Japan and other related articles as full a treatment as possible.
There's a lot to talk about - certainly, Japan's auto industry does produce some very fuel efficient cars, hybrid vehicles, and such and makes environmental efforts in other respects. There's also the Kyoto Protocol, and Cool biz. But while the Environmental protection in Japan article says a fair bit about population pressure and urbanization in general, very little is given by way of details. How may of Japan's rivers have concrete bottoms for no good reason? .. If anyone happens to have a good journal article or book or other solid source on Japan's environmental policy, it would be great. Thanks. LordAmeth (talk) 21:39, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Environment 

message: can somebody help me learn japanese
--email:Jay Turner (talk) 20:24, 7 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, since this is Wikipedia, how about http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Japanese -- Taku (talk) 22:28, 7 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks. I have looked at it, I keep on getting lost. :/ --ジェイターナー (talk) 17:50, 9 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Japanese 

message: Do we have a category for things like National Treasure, Important Cultural Asset, Living National Treasure, and natural monuments? Also, a stub type? I just created  :Category:Natural monuments of Japan and put it in :Category:Japan for lack of something more specific. Fg2 (talk) 05:56, 9 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: There are :Category:National Treasures of Japan and :Category:Living National Treasures of Japan, but they are not included in :Category: Japan. Somebody fix it, please. I don't know how to do it. And please create category:Important Cultural Asset. Thank you for creating Category:Natural monuments of Japan, Fg2. Oda Mari (talk) 06:25, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

text: And please create Category:Special Natural monuments of Japan/特別天然記念物 too. Oda Mari (talk) 06:32, 9 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: They don't need to belong in the category "Japan" if they already belong in a subcategory under it. --Saintjust (talk) 07:16, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

text: Saintjust, I agree. I wonder if we can choose a good name for a category and put all of these in it. Then we can put the new category in :Category:Japan or an appropriate subcategory. Is there a good one? Fg2 (talk) 07:31, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

text: I created :Category:Special Natural monuments of Japan and tried to put all the articles (but not sections) in the Japanese category that have links to articles in the English Wikipedia in it. Fg2 (talk) 07:30, 9 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: My suggestion for a category is :Category:Japanese society. User:Zscout370 (Return Fire) 07:35, 9 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I see, Saintjust. Thank you, Fg2. I'm going to do categorizing. Oda Mari (talk) 14:24, 9 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Awards, honors, and recognitions of Japan 

message: Figured yall might be interested in this. User:Zscout370 (Return Fire) 05:01, 10 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks -- I've added it to the list of Recognized Content in the Featured Articles column (I guess that's the best place?). Fg2 (talk) 22:24, 10 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: You're welcome. I tried to find a good recording of Kimi ga Yo to use for Featured Sound, this was the best one I could find and confirm copyright status for. User:Zscout370 (Return Fire) 22:25, 10 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Featured sound 

message: 東北大學 has returned to AfD. (didn't it just close?) 132.205.99.122 (talk) 20:53, 10 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Note that I'm not trying to get the page deleted.  I'm trying to make it into a redirect page, as it is a dab page with only two entries, one of them being the main topic.  Hong Qi Gong (Talk - Contribs) 21:26, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

text: It just closed again as AfD is not the place to discuss anything other than deletion of a page. ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 03:17, 11 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  東北大學 redux

message: Hobiyashi article has been nominated for deletion, if anyone can offer insight into the discussion please help. Benjiboi 05:20, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I closed (and deleted) it as blatant nonsense. ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 05:53, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Hobiyashi AfD 

message: To prevent anything similar to the Good Article Review on the article of the Japanese flag, what do I need to do with this article before I even attempt to send it to Good Article Candidates? User:Zscout370 (Return Fire) 18:22, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: You don't waste your time do you? Anyway, what I see is how the article can be or ought to be expanded. For example, the more detailed interpretation of the lyrics would be nice. Also, discussing when or how Kimi ga Yo is played would be nice too. I know, for instance, NHK uses Kimi ga Yo. This is relevant since it caused some if minor controversy. I don't know if this answered your question, though. -- Taku (talk) 21:25, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It answers my questions. I asked before how and when Kimi ga Yo is used and other members had no idea. I do remember about the NHK use of it, since I see their videos on YouTube (and I have the radio recordings on my computer). I know when they use it, and a source for it, it will work. I also asked about what do people do when Kimi ga Yo is played; few mentioned what to do. We're good on recordings, since I have a few at the Commons (and I created one last night of Fenton's old score and uploaded it here). User:Zscout370 (Return Fire) 21:34, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The only thing I ever saw was people standing respectfully (not at attention, but attentive). No hand over the heart, salute, or anything else (except for the JSDF members). I don't have any references for that, though. ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 01:28, 14 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I saw one for soccer events, but I believe the website is gone now. (It details some of the other salutes, like the Mexican flag salute). I done some digging around government websites and see if there is a way I can find something and no luck either. User:Zscout370 (Return Fire) 02:04, 14 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: In October I suggested watching the finale of the sumo tournament, and when I watched it, I added the outcome to the archives at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Japan/Archive/October 2007#Kimi ga Yo protocol. Of course I shouldn't have added new material to the archive, so to save you the mouse click: "At the sumo finale, the announcer asked the audience to stand and invited them to sing." Fg2 (talk) 03:59, 14 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: That works. I wonder if we can add a section about what the Law on the National Flag and National Anthem states about Kimi ga yo, unless it is very short. User:Zscout370 (Return Fire) 04:11, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

text: Right. That reminds me, the article on the law itself is a stub over here. User:Zscout370 (Return Fire) 07:28, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

text: I also added some more references about the hand over heart stuff, but sadly, they are from my side of the fence (US sources). However, do you think the article could be re-assessed from Start class to something else? User:Zscout370 (Return Fire) 09:08, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Kimi ga Yo]] again 

message: Please come participate in the discussion here. Thanks! ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 21:30, 15 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Katana, Nihontō, Japanese swords moves

message: I removed all the text from Tokyo's top ranked private universities and replaced it with rankings taken from external links. The previous article was based on a slogan; this one is based on published rankings. It's still subject to all the limitations of any ranking system but at least the subjective factors are outside Wikipedia and in the hands of those who publish rankings. I kept what was the References section, renaming it "Further reading." Fg2 (talk) 06:27, 16 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Can we then merge it into Education in Tokyo? -- Taku (talk) 06:53, 16 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It wouldn't matter to me if we did. However, as it is now, it's specifically a ranking of private universities, so it does not include UN, National, or Toritsu. In contrast, Education in Tokyo does not limit itself to private education. So if it were to be merged, it would be best to include all universities in Tokyo. Fg2 (talk) 07:03, 16 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: This would seem a good idea, but I confess I'm too exhausted to want to offer to do much to help in it. -- Hoary (talk) 07:23, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

text: Excellently recompiled. I still think it's pretty dubious as an encyclopedic subject; but so long as an article exists, then yes indeed this is the way the article should be. -- Hoary (talk) 07:23, 16 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Tokyo's top ranked private universities 

message: This edit appears to be strange. Does anyone know about this? -- ReyBrujo (talk) 13:59, 16 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: This unofficial fan site's profile page says so. But I have no idea if it's true. Oda Mari (talk) 14:49, 16 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Kou Shibasaki's real name 

message: Some discussion regarding some Japan-related content and editing ongoing here  at WP:ANI. Cla68 (talk) 02:27, 17 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It's just a couple anon IPs claiming the Japanese is saying something it's not saying. ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 05:26, 17 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Japan-related article discussion at ANI

message: I'm a little bit concerned that there are currently three English articles for the Japanese word 大刀.  They are:
*Daitō
*Daikatana
*Ōkatana
Now I'm quite confident that Daitō is a legitimate article, but I'm concerned with the other two.  For example, when the videogame "Daikatana" was in development, the title was widely mocked for sounding like a real word, but not actually being a word that any Japanese person had ever used to describe something. Considering that in addition to some generalized knowledge of the subject, my impression was that "daikatana" was a made-up word.  Similarly with Ōkatana, which until I just moved it a few minutes ago, was located at "O-katana", whose informal romanization leads me to further doubt its credibility (also, isn't it likely to be pronounced as "ōgatana"?).  Basically, I'm concerned that some anime scholars have been at work here, and I was hoping for some more learned input.  Thanks, Bradford44 (talk) 16:01, 17 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: 太刀 is read as tachi in Japanese.  大刀/daitō is another name for uchigatana. 大太刀/ōtachi, not odachi, and 野太刀/nodachi are longer tachi. Oda Mari (talk) 18:19, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

text: I don't understand. The Daikatana (sword) article says (and has done so for some time, according to article history) that Daikatana is pseudo-Japanese and directs the reader to 'daitō'. The ōkatana article (and you're right, it's awkward with a 'k' and should probably be pronounced ōgatana if anything) on the other hand... One thing that got my attention is the assertion that "O means great or long in Japanese". 'Great'? Given the proper context (as in this word, for instance), yes. 'Long'? No. Explaning Japanese words without kanji to go with the explanation? Dubious at best. TomorrowTime (talk) 22:01, 17 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, 大 can mean "long" in the same sense that "big" can mean "long". No, it's not as specific as "nagai" meaingin "long, but it all depends on context. ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 01:19, 18 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: And I agree, but the Ō in question here is supposedly not 大 but 太, which, as I understand it, can mean 'great', given the proper context, but not 'long'. TomorrowTime (talk) 13:41, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

text: Ok, but the Daikatana (sword) article is quite vague.  First of all, I have no idea what it means for a term to be pseudo-Japanese.  Second, the article states "In Japanese, 大刀 is actually read daitō, and is a less-used synonym for uchigatana."  So is "daitō" is a less-used synonym for "uchigatana", or is daikatana a the less-used synonym?  Finally, the term "daikatana" is referred to as a "reading mistake".  Is this a modern mistake, or a historic one?  Prior to the videogame, had anyone ever used this term, ever? Basically, if it's a purely fictional, modern term, I think the article should be much clearer about this, rather than using a meaningless descriptor like "pseudo-Japanese". Thanks for the response, Bradford44 (talk) 02:42, 18 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm sorry if you have trouble with commonly-used words (or prefixes) such as "pseudo". It doesn't really require defining, IMO (though for your benefit, I'll give you a definition link. The sentence you quote is pretty clear that it's daitō is the subject of the sentence. If you have problems with how the article is written, feel free to rewrite it fully or in part. Everyone is welcome to do that. ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 03:01, 18 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: As for 大刀, there's no daikatana pronunciation in Kojien and Gakken's dic.. 大刀 is daitō. As for 太刀 there's no entry of ōkatana pronunciation in the dictionaries. As I posted before, it's tachi. Correction for 大太刀, according to Kojien, the entry word is ōdachi and it says ōtachi is an older pronunciation. But the ja WP article name is ōtachi. Oda Mari (talk) 05:40, 18 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It may also be a regional thing (ōtachi vs. ōdachi). Voiced/non-voiced regional differences are very common in Japan (kurai vs. gurai, for example). ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 06:29, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

text: Bradford44 is right in saying that the Daikatana article is vague. I wouldn't go as far as saying that "pseudo-Japanese" is a worthless descriptor, but the rest of the article does fail to stress that the word is a non-Japanese neologism. In any case, I wonder if there is somebody over at the military history wikiproject who could shed some light on this? TomorrowTime (talk) 13:41, 18 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks again for the responses.  I am well aware of the definition of the word "pseudo", but the fact that the term "pseudo-Japanese" might mean "fake Japanese", "pretend Japanese", "trying to be Japanese", or "almost Japanese" was not helpful when I was trying to figure out the origin of the word "daikatana".  It makes a big difference, for example, whether it is a fake Japanese word that was invented by Japanese people in Japan in 1400 AD, or whether it was invented by Americans in Dallas in 1996.  Or by Japanese in Japan in 1996.  Each of these places the word's status in a different context, which the term "pseudo-Japanese" alone sheds no light upon. Neologisms are invented all the time, calling them "fake" words doesn't make a lot of sense.  Especially where the term "daikatana" is at least a theoretically possible reading of 大刀, it is somewhat less of a fake Japanese word than some word that just sounds Japanese, but has no kanji that it is (artificially) derived from. Like speaking gibberish with an accent so as to mock a foreign nationality.  The gibberish sounds are more what I would think of as fake words. Daikatana, to me, is more of a word that is "almost Japanese", rather than "fake Japanese", but in order to authoritatively call a word "almost Japanese", we would need to devise some sort of spectrum upon which a word could be judged to be "not at all Japanese", "a little Japanese", "half Japanese", "almost Japanese" and "Japanese".  However, I felt that the amount of work required to usefully employ the term "pseudo-Japanese" was far too great, and thus declared it "worthless" as a descriptor, because I felt that it would be more efficient to use more precise language.  That said, does anyone have any opinions on whether ōkatana is a "real" word, and if it's not, should the article be deleted? Bradford44 (talk) 16:46, 18 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Large swords

message: I think I may have perpetrated "BITE" in Talk:Book Off, though the bitten one has taken it well. Biting, chewing and swallowing aside, the article needs sourcing, but recent Japanese business history isn't my thing. Any volunteers? -- Hoary (talk) 01:39, 18 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't know much about BO, but their machine cleaning is well known and true. I've seen it on TV several times. And here's a Q and A to a former BO shop manager. See the #11 2005/10/18(火) Q and A. There's a mention about it, starting with '１０年程前は...'. Oda Mari (talk) 06:01, 18 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Book Off

message: There appear to be two duplicate categories. To make it in line with :Category:Japanese public universities and :Category:Japanese national universities, it makes sense to merge the latter to the former, but the latter strikes me as more natural English. So, we might want to rename :Category:Japanese X universities to :Category:X universities in Japan. Whatever decision we make, we can probably let some bot to implement necessary changes in names. Thoughts? -- Taku (talk) 06:54, 22 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: We should see which format is used most often for similar categories for other countries. ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 07:01, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

text: Though, on second thought, they aren't really redundant as the colleges category contains what would be termed "junior colleges" in the States, and the universities category contains full-fledged universities. Universities contain individual colleges, and are therefore larger units than colleges in general. I do think it would be good to give them both similar formatting (:Category:Japanese private X or :Category:Private X in Japan. ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 07:05, 22 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Ok. There are :Category:Private universities in Korea and few similar ones at :Category:Private universities. There is :Category:Public universities, but it seems to be used mostly for those in US. (How us-centric.) :Category:National universities is used for any schools of the type outside Japan :) On the whole, it seems some standard formatting doesn't exist. This is probably because there is not clear-cut definitions for national, public or private universities, contrary to the case in Japan. Basically, Japan seems to be ahead of any other countries in this type of categorization. So to answer Nihonjoe's question, we can probably safely pick any format we like without breaking any existing convention. -- Taku (talk) 07:20, 22 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[:Category:Japanese private colleges]] and [[:Category:Private universities in Japan]] 

message: Kasuga created these images for a couple articles over on the Japanese WIkipedia (School swimsuit and Bloomers), and they may be useful here, too:
We don't currently have equivalent articles here, and the one on Bloomers... I'm not sure how we would include it there without messing up the other images there. ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 18:09, 23 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It could be included to, while I am not sure if they exist, "Uniforms (in Japan) or Japanese schoollife or whatsoever. --Aphaia (talk) 10:50, 24 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: There is Japanese school uniform. No section on swimwear, though. ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 02:47, 29 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Other images by Kasuga that may be useful 

message: User:ACSE has been contributing to numerous articles about Japanese crime and criminals; unfortunately, he's not a native speaker of English.  Help cleaning them up would be appreciated. Jpatokal (talk) 15:28, 24 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Crime in Japan and User:ACSE 

message: Not a project member, but I wanted to inform the project of a new article in its scope. Public Security Investigative Agency which is decribed as "an organization performing espionage about the menace to the security for Japan based on Subversive Activities Prevention Law.". The link to the supposed law didn't work, and I worry - what with the espionage subject matter - that this might be original research at best and a hoax at worst. Maybe this is uncontroversial, and I'm just ignorant, but it seemed fishy. VanTucky talk 17:47, 25 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It's not a hoax. But it should be renamed. The official site I added says their name in English 'Public Security Intelligence Agency'. Oda Mari (talk) 18:11, 25 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The same user created two articles, one with "Intelligence" and one with "Investigative" in the title. I redirected "Investigative" to "Intelligence." Fg2 (talk) 20:48, 25 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Belatedly though, thank you, Fg2. Oda Mari (talk) 08:50, 27 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  new article and potential problem 

message: Please see this edit. Now the article has no ja link. Is the duplicated interwiki link not accepted? What is the best way to add the ja link to the article? Use ja:大字 (数字) or ja:命数法? Oda Mari (talk) 09:34, 27 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: ja:漢数字 (kansuji) is neither Chinese numerals or Japanese numerals strictly speaking. It's a system of number names that use kanji (/hanzi/hanja). Its use is not limited to China as it has been used in countries beside China also, most notably in Japan and Korea (much like Roman numerals). Although the "kan" of kansuji and kanji refers to the ancient name of China (Han Dynasty), kansuji and kanji are now proper nouns in Japanese language and no longer equate with the modern nation of China. --Saintjust (talk) 10:05, 27 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Japanese numerals]] 

message: Hi. The Military history of the Philippines during World War II article is very sketchy and on its page there is a red link for an article about the Japanese occupation of the Philippines (1941-1945) a very important subject that is still needed as there are already articles about: the Japanese occupation of Burma; Japanese occupation of Hong Kong; Japanese occupation of Indonesia; Japanese occupation of Malaya, North Borneo and Sarawak and Japanese occupation of Singapore, so this gap is glaring. Anyone with and interest or expertise in this topic is welcome to start writing it. Thank you, IZAK (talk) 11:44, 28 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Needed: Japanese occupation of the Philippines (1941-1945) 

message: I think something might be wrong with the article Kakumagawa, Akita in which it is claimed that Kakumagawa (I believe 角間川) is a town. I think it might not actually be a town. It is not mentioned in Akita Prefecture, and it does not seem to have a corresponding article on the Japanese wikipedia. Can anyone help with this? Arthena(talk) 17:50, 28 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't see it in :ja:秋田県. Perhaps it once was a town, and since has merged. You might try asking the author, who has contributed fairly recently. Does anyone else have any information? Fg2 (talk) 01:08, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

text: 角間川 is a town in the city of Daisen, Akita (大仙市). , :ja:角間川バスストップ. Towns are a much smaller unit than cities and so aren't mentioned in articles on prefectures. --Saintjust (talk) 01:40, 29 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Kakumagawa may no longer be a "town" (machi/cho, 町) in the sense that it has its own governing body and is recognized as an independent political unit by the prefecture of Akita. It seems to be just an address name of the area now albeit still bearing the suffix "町 " (like many street names in Japan). --Saintjust (talk) 02:34, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

text: Looks like 角間川町 (Kakumagawa) merged into 大曲市 (Ōmagari, Akita) on 1955-04-01, and Ōmagari merged into Daisen on 2005-03-22. ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 02:04, 29 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I updated the article with this information, and I left a message with the original author as was suggested. Thank you all. Arthena(talk) 16:30, 29 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Kakumagawa, Akita