Bureaucratic Sumo Wrestling: Japan & Germany

Two of the world's bureaucratic heavyweights deliver inadvertent proof that the remains of feudalism can hurt people in the year 2014.

They prove that progress is tentative, but they allow the rare reasonable official to shine with a statement as simple as "it is stupid".

While using the image of Sumo wrestling in the title might suggest blame is going to the Japanese, the truth is that Japanese striving for order only illustrates a couple of German quirks.
On the other hand, bureaucracies all over the planet do in fact resemble Sumo wrestlers. Like obese, featureless guys, greased and limited in their movements to a tiny circle, outside of whose confines you are a loser, bureaucracies are looked at with mixed emotions, from adulation, to fear, to incredulity, to reassurance. Add to the list as you like.

German citizens in Japan have run into a bureaucratic wall that illustrates two things:

1) Over-engineering, or in older terms, overzealous collection of information
German passports have a supplementary entry for maiden names. So, a German passport can state the identity of Susanne Maier as Susanne Maier, geb. Schmidt. Where "geb." means "nee". Since a change in German law allows the male spouse to take the last name of the woman, "maiden" name may not be the correct term, but that's for another post.

2) Leftovers of feudalism
If you obtain a German doctorate, you can have it be part of your name. Your choice, of course, but few Germans resist. So, you go from Mr. Maier to Mr. Dr. Maier.

A change in Japanese law says that alien registration cards must match the names as specified in the passport. Potential issues with different alphabets or scripts aside, Germans now receive cards with the "nee" information added, for instance, Susanne Maier geb Schmidt.

One consequence is somewhat annoying because of the layout of the cards. If the name does not fit into the maximum length of the card's name field, it gets truncated. Susanne Maier geb Schmidt may well become Susanne Maier geb Sch on the new card.

Another consequence is more serious and can make you penniless so to speak. Even if not truncated, your new name won't match your credit cards any longer. Back to cash it is -- if you can get money out of the bank.

The Japanese bureaucratic contribution to making life difficult is that bureaucratic pride and detail orientation in the face of adversity (also known as reality) precludes simply adapting the name on the new card to the actual name on the passport.