Nicolas Cage is pseudonym of Nicolas Coppola
I had a similar thing happen with a Chinese girl I was dating. This was in Australia, so she was going by a western name. When we discussed her being from China I asked her what her native name was and I got the same reaction. She absolutely would not say. Just kinda weird to go on dates with someone and not actually know their name.
Kinda similar, but when I was holidaying in Japan I met a guy who gave me his business card, but he kept insisting I only look at the English side. Would tell me off if I flipped it over to read the Japanese (which obviously I wanted to since I was learning the language). Anyway, turns out it had a different name on it.
OK, you can’t just drop a tidbit like that and walk away without further elaboration.
(Eagerly awaiting eye-popping details)
What confused me is that the emails could only be used in our office, both sending and receiving emails, so I couldn’t have used it to contact them outside of work even if I wanted to, and the emails were a random string of numbers and letters (think like g453p908@naninani) so there was no personal information attached to it… I asked him how I should send him the files and he was completely thrown off, which is when he suggested we just scrap all the work and do something else. I think about it all the time, I have no idea how I should have navigated that situation 
Offered to read out every single word in the documents and describe every graph so he could input it into his own computer by hand 
disclaimer: I’m not being serious, it’s so weird… it’s a work email, that’s what it should be used for lol.
Like all the others said, it’s not really the case. Some people feel more comfortable with keeping their privacy online, but the reaction itself is weird. Maybe your language partner has had other experiences in the past that would inform that sort of reaction, particularly with language learners 
. But definitely not a normal reaction.
how could you even scrap everthing and do something else in a workplace? 
wouldn’t you either not do what you are supposed to or run into the same issue again, if it is some kind of creative idea type of work, where it is more open what you are supposed to do ?
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I feel that’s a different situation and while her reaction was quite dramatic, that part is somewhat understandable.
@Mr_Flibble that conversation partner of yours is rather odd. Sounds like they’re terrible embarrassed about the kanji in their name. Not a single Japanese person I spoke to would be offended by the question. Quite the opposite.
I’m an ALT in Japan, it was to do with the lesson plan they came up with that required me to prepare things for them to use. They give me a lot of freedom for what I prepare for the lessons, but they absolutely have to check it first, which is why there was a problem!
In the end, we just played games that lesson instead.
In my experience (IT, working with developers, and supporting the rest of various businesses) at least 80% of all work is wasted effort, entirely fake, or just for show. And in some cases entire workflows exist just to make sure the same “work” has to be redone more than once
Sounds Japanese to me 
I guess for me it would depend on whether that person was your direct boss or not. If they are, they get to tell you what to do, I guess. If they aren’t then you have some scope for bringing it up with your actual boss as “what’s the best way for me to do X when working with this other person” and then it’s somebody else’s problem to either find another file transfer method or else go tell the other guy to stop being unhelpful…
Disclaimer: I have never worked in a Japanese workplace!
It doesn’t mean they aren’t 二世 or 三世 Korean descendants who grew up in Japan. I’ve made a few language partner friends who have this background, one explicitly said the kanji in their name doesn’t make sense or rather is atypical. It can be a sensitive topic on a number of levels and I’d leave it up to them on how much they would like to share or want to talk about. I also know some older generation people without kanji in their name, somewhat related to education opportunities for literacy in their family background and maybe not everyone wants to share that. Also some are given unconventional kanjis for a typical name as well, the ones I know have found it a hassle to always have to explain their name or have it mispronounced (just generally not happy with their given name due to this)…I suppose it could make them a bit more vulnerable on the privacy front on an internet search if they have a rare spelling and not wanting to share that in a language exchange.
I’m not OP, but that’s incredibly insightful, thanks so much for writing that.
I did! They gave me an office usb to use, but neither my laptop nor my teachers’ had a usb slot
Is it even possible to have a laptop without a usb port?
Aren’t some apple laptops super thin?
It’s common these days for USB ports to be blocked on work laptops, for security reasons, related to virus or malware scans.
They still have usb ports.
I guess that’s what they could have meant. Not having a port at all is what it sounded like.