Having spent a considerable time here in East Asia, I have become very used to the “Asian” order of things and find myself very comfortable with that order, more comfortable than with the “Western” order. And this also includes dates. Having said that, there is still some variety here; for instance, in Vietnam, even though they have the same name order, that is surname then generation name, then given name, they seat or sort names by given name rather than surname (at least this was the normal procedure when I was there). I was told this was because they had too few different surnames to sort with.

This would be an indicator of cultural differences, but not in the sense of some pschological or philosphical sense, but in the evolutionary development of identifying the recipient of mail. I do not know the history of how address were formed in either the East or West, but I would not be surprised if the Chinese model had antecedents clear back to the Sui-Tang period, if not at least to Qin Shi huangdi. With a well ordered state, the thinking process would have been rational and orderly. In the West, on the other hand, with the collapse of the Western Roman state and the near universal illiteracy that came quickly afterwords, I can imagine where one would address Friar Tuck as the guy at the third tree, past the brook as you enter Sherwood Forest from the South, near Nottingham. In an organized society one can begin with the general and move to the specific; but in a disorganized society one needs to identify the specific first, then move to the more general. The American system of identifying dates baffles me, though. Why begin with the month, then add the day, and wrap up with the year. It almost appears as if the year is an after thought.

I like those differences between China and Western country. When I am going to send a letter to foreign country, I feel it is quiet interesting to reverse the address order. When I write my English name on somewhere, I feel the same. Why don’t enjoy those differences between your hometown and the new world. If every place were same, it might be dull. Name and address order are not big things. Actually it is just custom or personal feeling, nothing related to right or wrong. Like “Wendy”, for you, it reminds you someone you don’t like, for me, it’s a beautiful name, because it belongs to a beautiful lady I met. We are different individual, have different character and different experience. So we have something to talk, to share, and to exchange, it brings us lots of fun. Don’t you think so?

Oh, miss one sentence.
“So do countries.”–Before the last sentence.

Juju:
Welcome to my blog. I didn’t expect to inspire anybody with my writing. But I’m glad you felt so.
More articles like this to come. Stay tuned.

Actually the US way does make some sense. Most of the wider area information (i.e. state, county, city) is sorted by machine, so it is really not relevant to anyone. Then the postman only needs to look at the second line for the street information, and the customer (the one receiving the mail) only needs to look at the first name, which is the first thing written on the address, to sort the mail up between the members of the house, thus making it as easy as possible for the customer.

Even though we say our given names first and family names second in the West, when we file/sort names, we use the Chinese order…Smith John, Kerrison Robert..or whatever. So, that isn’t actually a problem like you suggested.