...Official Birthday (tentative)...

[fauxgenius]

I hesitate to classify Saturday as part of the Busy Week, since all I had to do was go to a forty minute rehearsal...and a week is only seven days...so I don't think Day Seven is done yet. Once I wake up (today) I'll sing at three (3) church services with the quartet (in what's been described as a "pleasant" falsetto), then have a lull followed by

Comments

[nireus]

I don't claim to be an expert, so this could be completely wrong, but I believe that san is a suffix that when added to a name adds politeness. Japanese is a full of politeness levels that often times have no western equivalent, but fortunately in this case it does, as adding san is similar to addressing somebody as "Mr." though, unlike English, san can be used for both males and females

[salvadorpeabody]

All of what Steve says jives with what I have seen in anime with the addition that characters will refer to there girlfriends with chan regardless of age. You could use sensei even if he is not your sensei but in anime whenever it is used to refer to an artist like that it is some chick trying to get with said artist, though I don't know how this translates to real life. I think you might like to use Uematsu-sama as this is even more respectful than san and implies he is of much higher standing than yourself and someone you greatly admire.

[fauxgenius]

I was unaware of -sama until tonight - That's gotta be the way to go for someone who has so obviouslly achieved Baller Status.

[veenstra168]

Back in high school, my dad used to get phone calls from Japan (Business related) and the speaker (Susuki-san) would always just say "Dan-san" and wait for us to retrieve my father from wherever he happened to be.

It was very weird to hear my dad being known as Dan-san.

Most people I've met have just appreciated that I'll just even TRY in their native language, just because then I'm not an "ignorant American." The only people who I've found don't appreciate it are the Parisians.

I'm sorry I don't have more definitive answers for you, but I could probably ask a few of my Japanese major friends about how they addressed him when they went to his concert a few years back (they are currently over in Japan teaching English with JET)

[fauxgenius]

I agree in thinking that Trying is probably the best thing one can do in that situation...and you'll probably be right at least Some of the time!