Today I would like to talk about the Japanese culture of naming. In Japan, when people have a baby, the parents name their children with a lot of wishes, so the kanji or hiragana of the name has an important meaning. For example, my name is Haruka and “遥” in kanji, and it contains three meanings. First, I was born in Kyoto, so I was named after Kyoto. “Haruka” is a train starting to run in the Kyoto Station. My parents wanted me to love the hometown Kyoto. Second, the train “Haruka” runs between the Kyoto Station and the Kansai International Airport. Also, the airport is the place where many people leave for the distant place such as the foreign country. Therefore, my parents hoped that I would be a parson who can connect people like the train connecting Kyoto and the foreign people. Finally, my parents cared the number of strokes of a kanji when they decided what kanji is. So, they went to a Shinto shrine and asked the chief what kanji should be used. Therefore, the total number of strokes of my family name and first name is fortune. In this way my name was decided by my mother and father. I am very thankful to them and I would like to be a person whom they wished when I was born.