On cultural differences.

Christian writes about differences on the international level; how even something as simple as people's names isn't always easy, and that one has to be quite careful to avoid calling people 'Dear Verhelst', or some such, because you assumed that their first name was indeed their given name, while in their culture the last name is the given name.

Funnily, Christian advocates using capital letters to clarify which part of one's name should be considered the family name.

Sorry to disappoint you, Christian. Writing one's last name with all capitals is a French typographical convention. While it is understood in other places, it is not often used outside of France (except in organisations with a strong link to France, obviously); and it is, in fact, shouting.

It is also not actually helping any. I should, in fact, somewhere in my mailbox archive have an email reply from a South Korean guy that starts off like so:

Dear TIA,

to which I then had to explain that no, TIA is not my first name, it is an abbreviation for "Thanks In Advance".

Note the use of capitals.