As the responses and addresses filtered in, I felt as though I were presiding over a kanji Olympics! For a time, Japan and the United States were neck in neck, but the United States pulled ahead at the last minute, and I felt the same weird mixture of pride and embarrassment (at the pride) that U.S. Olympic victories prompt in me. I also found myself rooting for underdog countries! I’m so happy for the Netherlands with its two “gold medals”!!! Actually, one of the winners living in Japan is Dutch, as well! The countries below represent the winners’ current whereabouts, not necessarily their origins.
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USA: 7 (including one from Guam!)
Diane Carter
Roxanne Fischer
Michael Lindawan
Daniel Perez
Jawe Sonchaeng
Greg Stevens
Jasmin Valencia
JAPAN: 4
Mischa Berger
Corey Linstrom
Ian Masters
Katie Newman
ENGLAND: 3
James Kirk
Bjorn Stenger
Terry Sycamore
THE NETHERLANDS: 2
Kevin Graveman
Dorian van den Nieuwenhof
AUSTRALIA: 1
Daniel Tse
GERMANY: 1
Erik Danay
ICELAND: 1
Nika Efanova
SPAIN: 1
Alberto Sanz
VIETNAM: 1
Hong Anh
Did you notice that several of these names include the letters d-a-n, always in that sequence (though sometimes with interstitial letters)? I think that somehow gave Daniel Tse, Daniel Perez, Erik Danay, Diane Carter, Michael Lindawan, and Dorian van den Nieuwenhof a leg up, but I’m not sure exactly how that might have worked!
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