This week we hopefully made our last pilgrimage to Shanghai to get our alien papers in order. Part of the process is to put down all our names in Chinese as well. It was a fun experience to pick names for our family and our assistant Daisy giggled non stop when we explained our "real" names to her and the meanings in French, German and so on.
In China people are referred to by their surname and their first name. Last name first, first name last. In other words, "Bruce Lee" is actually "Lee Bruce". Daisy's "real" name is Xiang (surname) Bin (first name). The other day I wrote an email to someone saying that if my mail is not clear, they can contact my assistant "Bin Xiang". She then got a call from the person I sent the email to and enquired amusedly to speak to the "refrigerator" and whether the "refrigerator" can supply him with more info...Daisy was not impressed.
Our Chinese surname is "Ma". Trying to translate "Koekemoer" proved to be impossible, so we did not even tried to complicate a very complicated matter further...The complicated part is to try to marry the phonetic sound of our Western names with some kind of a traditional Chinese name that also depicts something of the appearance/character of the person. Easier said than done!
"Ma" (alongside Lee and Chen) is quite a common surname in China and literally means "horse". So our first names were settled as follows:
Rihann - "Liang" (meaning "bright"). So I am now a "bright horse" or it may apparently also refer to a famous Chinese painter.
Irene - "Rui jie". Meaning "auspicious fast". Irene is a "fast/victorious, auspicious horse". Clearly Daisy likes her new boss...
Fleur - "Xin yi" is a "happy, happy horse". The Chinese name for a flower is "hua" and Daisy almost fell off her chair when we suggested Ma Hua for Fleur. She refused to put Fleur's name down as 'Horse flower".
Renee - "Yan ya" is quite aptly an "Elegant and beautiful horse".
The flip side of the coin is that it is also common for Chinese people to give themselves a Western name. It appears that the better the understanding of the English language the more plausible the name. Our assistant Daisy said she dabbled with names such as "Fairy, Kiddie or Angel" for herself, before settling on "Daisy".
The best Chinese/Western name we encountered thus far is a girl who took us on a guided tour of the Humble administrator's garden. The name that appeared on her business card was "Swallow Senator". I am not sure what on earth she was thinking! Maybe some American statesman had something to do with it...
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
5 comments:
Hoesit Horseman, kan verstaan Koekemoer vertaal nie so lekker nie. LOL. Hou aan skryf, ek geniet dit baie!
Sterkte met die lewe daar, ek kan net dink dis nie altyd maklik nie.
My Chinese surname is also Ma...could that mean we are related?
Hey Ross
Fellow horse-man from the prairey! I think the relation is definitely there albeit six degrees...How's life treating you and Joan in Belfast?
Why does Bill Clinton always come into the story?
It is going great, we feel we are on one big vacation. It will probably stay like this until the money runs dry but for now we are having a great time. Yesterday we visited 2 castles and Giant's Causeway and still made it back home for KFC, it was really great.
Love to you all
Post a Comment