At one point, when I was surrounded 360 degrees by at least 25 comically over-enthusiastic students each wanting to share their name, shake hands, and tell me that my eyes are blue, I couldn’t help but try to explain the kick Westerners get from kooky Chinese names. I was met with blank stares and true misunderstanding. “Water is so beautiful and powerful, so why can’t it be my name?” the funny guy from Nanchang wanted to know. “Well, it’s just not a name,” I replied. What I really wanted to ask (but didn’t have the heart to), was “Why do you need an English name? And if you really need one, why don’t you choose one that won’t make people laugh at you?!” Actually, I’d really like an answer to this question, so if any of you have any insight, I’d love to hear it. Anyway, the topic of names quickly ceded into a discussion of whether or not I like Chinese food, how long I’ve been in China, how long I’ve been studying Chinese, what Chinese cities I’ve visited, which state in America I’m from, and if I like Hotel California by The Eagles.
About 30 minutes into English Corner, which was being held in a relatively large outdoor courtyard, one of the organizers asked me to come on stage and lead everyone in the performance of a passage from one of Li Yang’s Crazy English 疯狂英语 books. It was called My Oath and went exactly as reads below, with all 200+ in attendance screaming and gyrating in confirmation after each sentence I delivered (sorry I don't have pictures):
I can’t stand my poor English!The Chinese education system is a truly fascinating beast, as is the power, unity, and passion of the people, albeit often ridiculously named, who live in the world’s most populous country.
I can’t stand my ten years of wasted time!
I can’t stand being laughed at!
I want to improve my situation!
I want to change my life!
I want to be successful!
I want to be international!
I don’t want to let my parents down!
I don’t ever want to let my country down!
Most importantly, I don’t want to let myself down!
I want to speak perfect English!
I want to understand all kinds of accents!
I want to write beautiful articles!
I want to read thousands of books!
I want to translate freely between Chinese and English!
I want to be the master of the world’s two most important languages:
Chinese and English!
把这个博客翻译成中文
12 Responses to “Hey Echo… It’s Nice to Meet You, Too”
I lived for a summer in Anhui Province with a guy named "Gosome."
Other good names: Go-Go, Popsicle, Pokemon, Warcraft, and Wolfshenk.
As for your leading 200 young Chinese men and women in yelling an oath from "Crazy English," it doesn't hold a candle to my leading the entire staff of a New Hampshire Wal-Mart in the "Wall Mart Cheer" after a morning meeting. Give me a "W!" Give me an "A"...I was the squiggle, which required me to twist like a worm on its feet. Sorry, no video evidence.
Keep up the good work, Alex W!
Well, we Chinese use all kinds of words in our names, including water(which means gentle but strong) and sword(I think this is a really cool name). My Chinese name literally means "Jade of the Universe", so you know, it's just different culture. What's making it funny is how we try really hard to do the same thing in a different language under a different culture. But, Hey, come on, we also feel it strange for SO MANY names like John,David, Tom... to be used again and again in your culture.
One more example, I bet you will never see roads named as apple, peach...in China, right? We normally name them as "constructon road" "People road" and "Eastern road"...
Oh, one more thing, I don't know if it's just my problem. But I can't open Youtube for a long time. I thought it was banned somehow.
Nina - I definitely feel you on the huge cultural difference when it comes to names, but I don't understand why Chinese people would feel strange about so many Westerners being named John, David, etc...doesn't the word 老百姓, which refers to ordinary people, actually mean "old 100 names"? In other words, just 100 last names can cover the entire population, right? I also heard some statistic that more than 100 million people in China have the last name Li 李...that's 1/3 of the entire US population.
Anyway, I am also having problems with youtube...it's still blocked in parts of China, at least in Nanchang.
Keep the good comments coming!
haha, Alex, nice to have you to comment back, I like your blog.
You are right about the 100 names, but they are last names, not first names, right? Comparing with John, David,etc, we have like a million first names, all different. That's why we feel strange about repeating first names in English.
Also, one more thing, it seems that westerns use first name a lot but we honor more on last names. like, 老李, 小王,etc. Last names don't have much meanings, so I guess that's why they are not so many out there?
and sorry, Lina is Nina. not a typo, just a whole another story:)
hey Lina (not Nina)
If the Chinese honor last names so much, how is it that last names don't have much meaning? sorry for all the tough questions :)
It's just a last name...Like my last name (熊)literately means bear, but would you call me Lina the bear(although lots of my friends do...)?? All I am saying is that if we try to understand western names as our last names, then maybe the confusion can be solved.
Our last names are limited, mostly from "百家姓", But we have numerous first names as we create them all the time. That's where we are different.
It seems that I just lost my focus of the discussion. 我开始晕了...and, is there a spell check function on the site? that would be really nice...
There seems to be a lot of options for adding a spell checker to HTML forms, but the installation seems really complicated, and it will add javascript code to the website, which in turn will reduce loading speed. i think the easiest thing to do would be to write your response using Microsoft Word and then just paste and copy it over to the comment window.
Don't forget how Chinese people like to adopt celebrity names! I was with a friend one time and he was like, I'm going to go play basketball with LeBron this afternoon...which makes you pause and think...you mean, LeBron James who plays for the Caveliers? But no, no, it's LeBron, his short Chinese friend...
I just read an interesting NY Times article called Name Not on Our List? Change It, China Says. China is apparently trying to modernize the database on its citizens, and the government’s PSB has been replacing handwritten identity cards with a computer-readable ones. The PSB's computers, however, are only programmed to read about half of the recognized 50,000+ characters in the language. On top of that, work has been done on a standardized list of characters for people to use in everyday life, including when naming children. Supposedly, the soon-to-be released name list will include only about 8,000 "ok for use" characters. In this light, perhaps having an English name is one way to assure individuality.
Some of my students names include: 'Dennis Rodman', 'Kobe', 'Apple' 'Sheep' and 'Psyche'.
I go by Bones...
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