For context, in case anyone needs, that's a common date format in Japan. Aside from using kanji characters, the big surprise to most of the rest of the world is that the largest epoch is specified as a royal era name[1], corresponding to the Japanese monarchy.
This parallels, and the remark about patio11 refers, to this article[2], which has since become famous on HN. It ends with a similar remark from the author's prior experience as an American expatriate in a less populous and less cosmopolitan part of Japan, when a clerk remarked that Patrick McKenzie was a troublesome name to have in Japan, and why didn't he change it to something convenient and ordinary like Tanaka Taro[3].
Tiny correction: in 2010, I invented a thing parallel to something many well-educated Americans of my acquaintance believe with respect to the centrality of their experience, for the Falsehoods essay.
In 2012, a clerk actually asked my wife and I, when we got married, whether it wouldn't make more sense for me to change my name. Then he wouldn't have to spell Patrick McKenzie on the wedding paperwork, and, approximate quote, "I already have to get one name change form out for her so filling out a second one is no trouble at all."
There was a post on Language Log once scoffing at the stupidity of the Chinese for their feeling that Uyghurs should use normal Chinese names.
I asked a friend in Shanghai whether she thought Uyghur names should be allowed. She responded: "Huh? You don't get to choose what other people's names are. They tell you their names, and then you have to call them that.
And if you really want to think about weird names, there's a country called 'St. Vincent and the Grenadines'!"
(In other minority-names-in-China news, I have a Mongol friend whose name is Saruul. Her parents sinicized this as the three Mandarin syllables sha-ru-la, which look like a normal Chinese name. I don't actually know what she prefers to be called, but I suspect most people she knows call her Rula.)
This parallels, and the remark about patio11 refers, to this article[2], which has since become famous on HN. It ends with a similar remark from the author's prior experience as an American expatriate in a less populous and less cosmopolitan part of Japan, when a clerk remarked that Patrick McKenzie was a troublesome name to have in Japan, and why didn't he change it to something convenient and ordinary like Tanaka Taro[3].
This has since become HN folklore.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_era_name [2] https://www.kalzumeus.com/2010/06/17/falsehoods-programmers-... [3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6145768