Quote:
Skip,

in Hong Kong and Korea middle names do not exist, they never did, they never will.
So it is kind of obvious that the middle name ALWAYS will be blank with Hong Kong and Korean actors.

cheers
Donnie

Quote:
Quoting Jubal:

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Taro:

I really hate to be a nudge. But, and don't take this wrong, I see you pontificationg, BUT I see no documentation to back it up. I hope that you can provide some for Kathy to use.

Skip

Certainly, no problem. It's a legitimate request you ask. Here's a handful of sites:
http://www.allcinema.net/prog/show_p.php?num_p=467044
http://ijin.keieimaster.com/new/kako/1218.html
http://movie.goo.ne.jp/cast/149175/
http://www.tsutaya.co.jp/artist/50009543.html

All websites have him as Yokohama Toyoyuki. The last page also shows he worked on the movie Audition.

Quoting DarklyNoon:

Quote:
Skip,

in Hong Kong and Korea middle names do not exist, they never did, they never will.
So it is kind of obvious that the middle name ALWAYS will be blank with Hong Kong and Korean actors.

cheers
Donnie

Interesting point.

I think the argument that culture should be left out of credit input is a valid point. But that brings up an interesting question:

middle name: is that just a word that is in the middle of the credit? Then this indeed is unrelated to culture and whenever we see three words, we should input that name as X/Y/Z

However, if middle name is the western concept of a middle name as it appears on a passport, then willing or not, culture automatically enters into it, as we try to force a standard from western culture on non-western names.

I don't know how Ken intented that field to be used, but if it is the western concept of a middle name, then culture automatically becomes an issue, as DarklyNoon pointed out.

Quote:
Well,

I am collecting asian films for more then 2 decades, I have numerous books about asian cinema.

I also know a 29 year old korean woman very well and I am in good terms with my local chinese restaurant.

All these sources give me the knowledge that there are NO middle names in those 2 countries.

For example if a chinese guy is named Bla-Blu Bling, the 1st name field is Bla-Blu and the surename field is Bling, the middle name field will be empty.

The guys around here who audit most asian titles in the database besides myself, synner-man and DragonMa, will also tell you that middle names do NOT exist in those countries, this is common knowledge if you are interested in korean or chinese culture.

I think there is no more proof needed for that.

synner-man just does it for a long time in his contributions and they all get accepted, becauase it is simply the way the names are in those countries.

If we see the "middle name " field just as a field where the second name in the credits are entered, then it is a different issue, but that field shoudn't be called middle name then

cheers
Donnie

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What suggestion, Ace? I don't see one.

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Quoting Jubal:

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What suggestion, Ace? I don't see one.

Sorting correctly means sort by family name. This is standard in all countries that use one, AFAIK, regardless of how the name is written. My suggestion was enter Fat//Chow Yun [Chow Yun Fat].

There are several problems with entering 1/2/3 unless documented otherwise. One is that the concept of middle names only really exists in Western Europe and it's cultural allies and you are trying to fit all names into it. More importantly, documentation can be provided on one profile, but this will just create a mish-mash of common names where some profiles get updated and others don't. A good system would parse any given name in a consisitent way. It's also unclear what documentation we would even provide beyond documentation that the person in question is Korean or Chinese (which you can usually tell anyway) and a statement this is how names work in Korea and China. I.e. this is too vague to be called a standard at all.