alt Hacker NewsWeird little quirk I've recently encountered, somewhat related to OSM: the `mkgmap` tool used to convert OSM data to Garmin map files display Chinese pronunciation as English names next to POI names in Japanese, due to 1) Japanese OSM maps have a lot of entries written in Japanese without indication of language, 2) no one is doing anything about it, due to Wikipedia style community nuances or something, and 3) the tool have no "--assume-language=$LANG" style of options(plus Japanese script->pronunciation mapping isn't even remotely bijective).
e.g. There's a bicycle parking next to the parkside exit at Ueno station, "上野駅公園口自転車駐車場". This is:
meaning: Ueno station park entrance bicycle parking ground in English,
read IRL: ue no eki kouen guchi jitensha chusha jou in Japanese, but written
on the map: shang ye yi gong yuan kou zi zhuan che zhu che chang as Chinese(in Pinyin but I don't know how to type it).
I have a hard time making sense of your post. What do you mean with 'Japanese OSM maps'? There is just one OpenStreetMap, which includes Japan.
On OpenStreetMap all entities which are named have at the very least the tag `name`. There is no need to specify which language that name is in, because this is geographically determined. For the whole of Japan, `name`-tags are considered to be in Japanese.
This specific bicycle parking has no other names but that one `name` tag, which is the Japanese 上野駅公園口自転車駐車場:
https://www.openstreetmap.org/node/3395310504
This is totally normal. Most named entities only have a local name. A random bicycle parking is not likely to have a name in any other language but the local one. For things which actually have an exonym (like countries and larger cities), you will find additional namespaced language tags like `name:ja` and `name:en`, but a bicycle parking in Japan usually doesn't have an English name (although you can translate the Japanese name).
As for why you are seeing Chinese, that has nothing to do with OpenStreetMap. Some other tool in your chain is doing that (mkgmap?).