I'm reading the book Pachinko and enjoying it greatly. The only thing that slightly annoys me is the use of Japanese phrases. I was curious if someone who knows better can verify if the use of -san in the book is used appropriately. As the characters in the book are of different social statuses, it sounds strange to me that they mostly use -san, and not other terms such as -sama or even terms like -kun in certain passages. I also notice they often use -san following a first name, and not a last name. Or that characters say brief statements like 'hai' (like a boy getting scolded by an officer) when I imagine that would be completely rude. Lastly, I wonder if the term oishii would be used in Kansai in the 1930s as often as in the book, or if there would be other terms such as umai used.
I don't know Japanese well enough – especially Japanese across the decades – to know if my annoyance is valid, haha.
I know the author isn't a Japanese native speaker so I shouldn't be hard on them. But it's always nice when the research is done that the language used matches the era and context. Or just omit the Japanese phrases all together if they aren't accurate.
by Actual_Assignment476