What is your name?
Do you identify with it? If you don't, did you give yourself a name you prefer being addressed as? I have friends who gave me the privilege of naming them because they just couldn't live with their Chinese names. I, too, asked my mummy when I was little, "Why didn't you give me a Christian name?" She replied, "Isn't Liang May a nice name? You are Chinese." I had been ashamed of my name.
Christian names are given at baptism. It is traditionally a personal name formally given to Christians at christening. However, this is now loosely used as an English name for cross-cultural ease. We are concerned about how the caucasians might call us and hope to make their lives easier. Instead of "lee-ang-may", I might get a "lian-may". Instead of a Mrs "young", I might hear a Mrs "yee-ang". But hey, why are we bothered about that? If we can adapt to their cultures, why not them? I don't see a need for us to change, add or subtract just to convenience them. Yes, they used to rule and we tailed behind their backs. Not anymore.
The influence of western cultures caught up with us in a mere decade or less. We are exposed to everything "ang mo" that we even (pretend to) cut up a five-tiered styrofoam wedding cake at weddings. Do we actually know the meaning of a wedding cake in a western culture? Have we been following the all-mighty (western) values and customs blindly. Well, don't forget, our roots are from China, Malaya and India. Nothing on us shouts WHITE!
How more horrible can this naming proceeding get? *hahah* when you give your child a very 'uneqqee' name and you pronounce it wrongly. What a joke!
The Mei-Lings and Ying-Yings are considered as old-fashioned but I find them intriguingly timeless. If the 'ang mos' can't pronounce Tham Kai Ming, they just call him 'Kai' for short! What's so complex about that?
So, Oh No! What's Junior gonna be called? I love naming my Jim Thompson elephants and I can give them names in a flash. In fact, I'm proud of the names I gave them but it is a tough one when it comes to your own child. I (We) like a lot of English names and they come storming into my (our) head(s) but I need to stick to my conviction! *hahah* So... the baby won't have a name until probably after birth because Meyer and I have an insubstantial list of chinese vocabulary to build a name after 杨. Someone else needs to name this little tot on our behalves.
i love my chinese name.. feel its so nice. haa.
ReplyDeletebut think not much pple called me by that le.
even my sec school teacher called me by Jasmine. :p
I was always being made fun of during sec sch days - bee hoon, ah shiok, vermicelli.. but I prefer my friends from pre Elyse period to call me Shuyun still.
ReplyDeleteAlso, welcome back to blog writing!
Finally my comment is being posted! I had so much trouble trying to post that and I had to keep retyping till I gave up and shorten my comment.
ReplyDeleteAnd now my previous comment is gone???!?! Barf!!! I give up.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, my previous comment was that I was always given awful nicknames during sch days such as Bee Hoon, Ah Shiok, Vermicelli.
Hahhaa Shuyun, you finally got your posts up but no worries, I saw them all. They were emailed to me. How did you know I was back writing again? Amazing stalker!! *hahah*
ReplyDeleteWell, back to you Vermicelli, I do remember! That's because we were kids and our parents never educated us about identity and sense of security. Remember how I had a Liang Si Mei out of nowhere too? *hahahah* No Sweat! I was too Hao Lian then to be bothered. They can go on as much as they want, "Shaaa-Loooowww" *hahah* They should be ashamed of themselves =)
Anyway, we will be educated parents and teach our children very differently from hereon. By the way, the government did advise parents to use Han Yu Pin Yin instead of dialect names from about 1981? So remember, if you have a girly girl in future and you wanna give her a "Shu" or "Mei", there shouldn't be a "Shiok" or "Bee" anywhere in their lives.
Can you imagine I would have been called Leong Bee! LOL
And Meyer, I wouldn't know what his dialect would be for a Rui-Xiang though. He didn't have a dialect name on his IC too.
I am just so resourceful. I just had to repeat that even thought I've told you so via watsapp =P.
ReplyDeleteThank goodness for hanyu pinyin. I wouldn't know how to translate that to dialect!