Tuesday, December 18, 2007

• What's in a name?

  Thanks for all the good wishes. Any birthday beyond the half-century mark needs all the happy wishes it can muster. Thanks to those of you who wished me well on FB, too. I am truly grateful.

  should i call u Onigiriman or Ray Kanzaki then?
  tanjf
  

  On Xanga, I will always be Onigiriman, so please continue to call my Onigiriman.
  

  Sounds like a Street Fighter name.
  Street Fightin' Japanese literature professor.  Sounds about right.
  Smart_BAd

  I agree. It has an edgy sound to it. More street fighter than J-Lit prof, if you ask me.
  

  Happy Birthday to you! But I still like calling you, O-man!
  PicsesTiff

  Girl, you can call me anything you like, but O-man will do nicely.
  

  The last name doesn't exactly roll off the tongue, but it will do. xD What kanji would you use to write your new last name?
  onigiri

  There's a critic in every crowd. Personally, I think it sounds rather cool. And for your information, Kanzaki would be written 神崎, but he will be a Japanese American so the kanji is not so important, I think.
  

  today i made onigiri with some college kids for a party. i was a bit worried bc i've never made them before- but they turned out ok... but we argued over how to pronounce the word.. so i come to the expert- the o-man! :)
  jerjonji

  I'm glad to hear that you made some tasty rice balls. And just for you, Jerjonji--play this to hear the pronunciation of my namesake and my name.

  People may not understand this, but I'm actually pretty particular about how I pronounce my name. "Onigiri" is a Japanese word and so should be pronounced with a Japanese accent. Oh-nee-gi-ri. The "r" in Japanese is a tongue flap of sorts, much like how it is in Spanish, but only one flap. Don't roll it, or you'll sound like a Japanese hoodlum. "Man", on the other hand, is English and should be pronounced with an American accent, much like Spiderman. For me, at least, the name itself has that quintessentially American comic book ring to it. Superman, Batman, Ironman, Onigiriman... Okay, maybe its just in my head...
  

  Now this may be a stretch for you guys--please feel free to disagree--but for me it is the perfect representation of who I am. A Japanese American who values both heritages, is steeped in both cultures but tends to keep the two distinct, if not exactly separate. Like, Onigiriman--both Japanese and American (English), but joined together to make a single identity.
  

  Back to Ray...

  Just so we're clear about this: Ray Kanzaki is the name of the main character for anything I will now write. In fact, you can plug his name into any of my old stories, as well. I've felt that using my screen name sounded wierd in some of the stories. It'll be good to use a name that actually sounds like a name instead of the obviously fictitious Onigiriman--although this is preferable to some mixture of alphabets and numbers that represent aspects of my life, but end up looking like words in the game, Jumble. I could have used eastla55bruin, but that would really sound stupid in a story.
  

  So I'm still Onigiriman--or O-man, if you prefer. Ray is just my in-story pseudonym.
  

  • 6:13 PM
  • 14 eprops
  • 7 comments