—'So far as I am aware of,' said I, 'he was born in Lafcadi, one of the Ionian Islands, when it was under English occupation, having an Irish father, I believe, and a Greek mother. He passed his early years in England until he became a youth, when he went to America, where he remained until after the prime of life. He then went to Japan, and in course of time married a Japanese lady and became a naturalised subject there. So he was a regular cosmopolitan. He always occupied some position as teacher, and was much liked by his numerous pupils. His Japanese name was Koizumi Yakumo. Technically speaking, he caused himself to be adopted by the family of his wife, and so took their family name "Koizumi" for his surname, and Yakumo for his personal name, or, as you call it, Christian name.'
—'What you have just said somewhat strikes me,' remarked the lady. 'You have put the Christian name after the surname.'
—'Ah!' said I, that's a reasonable question. Perhaps you don't know that in Japan we put our family name first. That is to say Gambetta Léon instead of Léon Gambetta, if he were a Japanese. It is so with the Chinese; it is also so with the Hungarians. It is one of the proofs which the Hungarians produce as being descendants of the same stock as the Orientals. When, however, we are in Europe, or write with European letters, we generally reverse the order and make it agree with the European method. Well, unless we do that, we are liable to be called wrongly by having our names reversed, in such a fashio as Monsieur Léon, or Monsieur G. Léon, instead of Monsieur Gambetta, or Monsieur L. Gambetta. Such absurdities often occur in reality, and it is very inconvenient.
—'I see: that accounts for many discrepancies which exist in writing som well-known Japanese names, as I occasionally notice in books or papers written in a foreign language; but it is no use to refer to the Japanese by name, their names are too difficult for us to remember—it took me weeks to remember your name correctly.'
—'Just so,' I answered, 'It is equally difficult for us to remember European names. It is the reason why I do not recollect many people to whom I am continually introduced; to confess, I do not remember your name correctly. Russian names are particularly difficult to remember, not only to us Orientals, but to Anglo-Saxons, even to you, the French. Do you know that in England Rodjestvensky, before he became famous and well known, was called simply "Roj" very often, and aliens sometimes called him "Rotten-cheese-sky." Poor admiral! Witte is simple enough to remember. We Japanese remember and often write General Kuropatkin as Kurobato, that is to say, "black pigeon."
Of course, association is the best means of remembrance. We remember your words "Salle-à-manger" by Sara-mongi, that is, a "plate and written characters," and the English word "Minister" as me-no-shita, that is, "below the eyes." In fact, me-no-shita is used very commonly in corrupt English at the open ports of Japan. Frans-Me-no-shita is "French Minister," and Igiris-Me-no-Shita is "English Minister." A dozen years ago there was in Japan an enterprising man who advertised that he had invented a good system of memory, and even opened a school. It was no other than remembering things by association, and I think there is a good deal in it. A little time ago, as you know, their Highnesses Prince and Princess Arisugawa were on a visit to Europe. Lord Lansdowne had great difficulty in remembering the name. Our Me-no-shita in London asked him if there were not a Princess Alice in England, to which his Lordship replied "Yes." He then asked if there were not a street called "Gower Street," to which his Lordship similarly answered "Yes." Thereupon our minister said: "Very well, Princess Alice and Gower Street, that makes Arisugawa." After that his lordship, the Foreign Secretary of Great Britain, remembered the name of our Prince and Princess very well.'
—'That's all very well,' said she: 'but you mix up r and l altogether.'
—'That's true,' I answered, 'it is the weakest point for us in speaking European tongues. We cannot, or at least without the greatest difficulty, make any difference in pronouncing r and l. Thus "right" and "light" become alike when we speak. It is very necessary to think of that fact when you talk with a Japanese. All this arises from the fact that in the Chinese and Japanese tongues there are not two different sounds of r and l; those sounds in Japanese are more like your ra, ri, ru, re, ro, whilst they are la, li, lu, le, lo in Chinese.'
—'I have noticed it very often,' she said, 'even while you talk you do the same. Your allusion to remembering things by association is very true; we do the same very often. But it often produces curious errors.'
—'True,' I said, 'I know a few instances. In Japan there is a kind of cloth, mostly used for négligées, called Yukata, a bath-cloth, so called because it was originally used after the bath. We call the "evening" Yiukata, the only difference being the "u" in one case being pronounced longer than in the other. We call "shower" Yiudachi. A European lady married to a Japanese appears to have tried to remember the bath-cloth by association. She went to a draper's and asked for a Yiudachi (shower) in place of Yiukata (evening). No one understood it. She was speaking of "shower" instead of "evening," the result of trying to speak by association. We have two ways of counting, and we call the number "ten" either jiu or to. We have a certain kind of boxes which are made to fit one on top of the other, and only the topmost box has a lid. They are called jiu-bako, which means piling boxes. They are used in households very commonly. The same lady appears to have remembered that name by jiu, that is, ten of the number according to one of two ways, and Hako, a box. One day she called her servant to bring to-bako instead of jiu-bako. The servants, of, course, did not understand her. The lady misused the association of counting ten in one way instead of the other.'