Feudal [DT]

Foreigner = Peter.

This is really interesting! I never knew anything like this about Japanese.

Foreigner = Wei Cheng?

By the way, I may be mistaken but aren't geisha referred to by their first names, with the honorific?

@Lael I think you may be right! I knew that geisha took new first names when they became one, but I didn't know about that. That would be my bad XD

Therefore, my character would be called 'Chikako-san' or 'Chika-san' by most, and 'Chikako' or 'Chika-chan' once she gets closer to others.

... At least I hope that's correct.

Probably Chikako-san. I didn't know that about Geisha... You learn something new everyday!

As for the foreign characters...

I'm mostly certain that Japanese people call Chinese by [first name]-san. So Yang Wei Cheng would be 'Yang-san'(?). I'm no expert, but I remember watching something in which this happened.

And Peter Lacy would be defaulted to 'Peter-san' by Japanese, but he could request to be just called 'Peter' and there would be no issue.

I'll research more about this later today to be sure. If others are more experienced with this stuff please correct me if I'm wrong >_<

Wei Cheng is his given name. I'm following the Eastern naming order here, with family name first. (Although I'm sure it's okay, at this era in time Japanese still put their family names before their given names. In fact, they still do that today when not associating with the West, if I'm not mistaken.)

And Japanese are similar to the Chinese in their formality and use of honorifics. There is this strict hierarchy thing. Wei Cheng would be uncomfortable being called by his first name. I'm not really sure what they'd call him, but I don't think Chinese would be on the same level as western foreigners.

I'll look it up and see if I can find anything.

I have a feeling I won't be able to find it. I've looked and most of the stuff I found is irrelevant. Let's just go with Yang-san for people who aren't so close, and Wei Cheng only for the closest buddies.

It's probably a pretty out there thing to search up. "Japanese citizen referring to Chinese citizen"

That is pretty close to what I searched. XD

What did you search?

- "how do Japanese address foreigners"
- "how do Japanese address Chinese"
- "how would a Chinese person be addressed in Japanese"

^Pretty much that stuff.

I looked up the exact same searches with the same poor results.

But I just happen to be at a Japanese restaurant right now, so I could ask the waitress XD

Update: I asked the waitress, and she said Japanese would address a Chinese person with their surname and '-san' if they didn't know each other well, since Chinese are also quite conservative with names.

However, Western foreigners would be first name and '-san', because thier culture is used to using first names universally.

Ooh, nice! Thanks, @CoffeeCat! Good one.