00:12
This one is one of those random questions that I had in my mind for quite some time, but
I'm only just remembering.
You know in Japan,
誠実な文字を書く人だとか、人が良さそうな貴重面そうな字だな、みたいな言うじゃないですか。
I've never heard of people saying that.
I've never heard it in the United States.
Right? Especially because in English specifically, right? I know so many people with terrible handwriting.
You cannot read, even they cannot read their own handwriting after they finish writing it.
Like doctors are sort of famous for having terrible handwriting and stuff like that,
because they're always rushing and you know, you never hear
people judging the personality or like ability of a person based on handwriting.
And I wonder if it's just like a Japan thing or is this non-alphabetic language thing?
Or whatnot. We need a Chinese friend to vouch in this.
Yeah, I feel like it might be a Japanese thing.
But it's clear that it's very important for Chinese people in terms of, like they have calligraphy,
right? So it's important, like it's an art form and that people prize the ability to write nice
handwriting.
That's a good point. In my step from the calligraphy culture.
Calligraphy. Yeah, I mean, you know, alphabets have typography as well,
but it's more about the font design rather than reflecting your own personality into your writing
or specifically the way you write.
And yeah, the other day it just occurred to me, like,
03:06
Oh, you know what? I remember why I thought about this.
It's because I saw my friend who's studying Japanese,
writing, like practicing his Japanese, right?
And he was writing like,
And you know, he's what, like almost 30 year old, full blown grown man.
And writing, like, because it's new language for him.
And it's very cute.
And when I saw that, I couldn't help but say, oh, that looks cute.
And I was like, what do you mean it's cute? And just practicing my writing.
And I tried to explain, like, this is not to demean you or sound condescending,
but the way you're writing, it sounds like you put a lot of effort in it.
Like, you don't know how to distribute your writing pressure quite yet.
So it looks like
I don't actually know, that's true.
Like, I don't know why my immediate thought was like,
based on his writing.
Like, I got a specific impression, like,
Like, just from his writing.
And this is not to say that he's not a cute person.
He's very adorable.
But it's just funny how I associated his handwriting with a certain type of personality trait.
Maybe we have this tendency to try to interpret the writer's characters.
Or like, his expressions.
Yeah, maybe.
In which case, I don't know what my handwriting looks like in Japanese.
But one, I haven't written Japanese in so long.
I don't think I've ever seen your handwriting in Japanese.
Right? I mean, why would you?
We met in America.
We never exchanged letters.
And if I'm writing a quick memo of something, you know, if I'm jotting down notes,
06:04
if I'm taking notes, usually English is faster for me.
I mean, it'll be different if I'm listening to Japanese presentation and trying to take notes.
Like, then I don't think I'll be taking notes in English.
But it's so difficult to write Japanese letters quickly because of kakusu.
And it's not continuous, you know.
And there's, I forgot the hitsujun, you know.
Yeah, this line first, and then this line, and then, yeah.
And it's funny because I don't think I've been doing that, basically,
ever since I stopped attending to Japanese school, right?
Because if I were in a school, I think there was way more chances of me writing,
handwriting something.
And, yeah, basically, I left Japan when I was after chuichi,
so I haven't been writing on a regular basis in Japanese since then.
You know, after that, it's like very occasional.
Right?
Like, maybe Christmas cards and stuff, or nengajo to my grandparents and stuff,
I'll write a line or two.
But other than that, I haven't written Japanese letters on a regular basis,
and I don't know if my handwriting is representative of my character anymore.
Yeah, you know what?
I think Japanese letters are not intended to write quickly,
because maybe it's intended to show, like, beauty or the scenery,
yeah, like, the meaning to them as much as possible, maybe?
So, that is why we tend to think through, like, interpret more than just lines and dots,
because of how the words were made,
like, Japanese characters were made over many, many years,
because, yeah, because of the purpose of it,
like, the history of the characters were very different from how alphabets were developed.
Yeah, maybe there's more aesthetic components to how we look at handwriting,
09:00
whereas maybe in alphabets, it's purely functional.
Yeah, like...
But even then, like, sometimes I look at my English handwriting, and it's terrible.
At least it's consistently terrible, so I can read my own terrible handwriting.
That's good, yeah.
So, like, I can, like, especially little, like, lowercase r and lowercase v look very similar for me.
And, yeah, when there's a letter M in any writing, it's an arbitrary number of うにおうにおうにお I have.
Yeah, it's not particularly neat, but at least the pattern is consistent, so I can read it.
Whereas some people, it's not even straight, just completely all over the place.
Or they're messy, but inconsistently messy to the point that they don't even know what they wrote.
Yeah, so I think if a Japanese person were to sort of judge a native English speaker's
handwriting, it would be just a bunch of psychos.
Yeah.
Like, you must be very unstable writing this way.
Dangerous person.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
No, just a thought.
It was a weird thing that it only occurred to me then.
Yeah, just I wonder, you know, sometimes it's interesting, but maybe it's not super
beneficial to judge people based on handwriting.
Like, 履歴書?
Oh, my God.
I hope Japan stopped writing 履歴書 in handwriting.
I don't think so anymore.
Yeah, but it was still, at least I think, I mean, I guess I never 修課 in Japan, so
I don't know, but I think people still write, like, maybe copy the one that they handwritten
to people, or is it more common that you do a type out?
I guess it depends on a field as well.
Maybe, but I never heard handwriting, like, a CV or applications.
まあ、まあ。
CVとかはね、だけど、なんか、普通の履歴書, you know, like, where you just,
like, write your 履歴, resume, I guess, yeah.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I'm not sure.
I wonder.
I hope they stop, but, like, because if they did that to my handwriting, they would just
12:03
be like, well, this person is just, like, 12-year-old.
Mine too.
I have a very bad handwriting.
Yeah, but in some places, they would request applicants to send actual papers, like, print
out, like, application.
It's so awful.
Oh, we need to stop this.
We need to stop this.
It doesn't make sense.
We have emails, web systems.
We have emails.
We can put attachment.
You can control F.
And, but still, some places, they, and in one place that applied before, they requested
applicants to send, like, five sets of same printed documents.
Like, yeah.
Oh, because they're meant to, like, they're going to share it with the, like, the board
members.
But they can make copies, right?
If I see them, yeah.
Right, yeah.
Like, they have a capacity to make copies.
Yeah, yeah.
I'm sure of it.
But they, they requested, yeah, us to send five sets of copies.
Wow.
Wow.
That is crazy.
These bad habits, bad habits die hard, I guess.
Yeah.
Oh, well.
That's all.
That's it for the show today.
Thanks for listening, and find us at EigoDeScience on Twitter.
That is E-I-G-O-D-E-S-C-I-E-N-C-E.
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