The Chinese, by any other name…
We were surprised to learn, during our month in China, that many bright young things there have a Western name as well as their given Chinese name. They ran the gamut – obvious ones (Zhu Li > Julie), action heroes (Bruce…), to amusingly random (names that would befit a 50’s Holywood starlet, not a trendy Chinese fashionista)!
Companies in Shanghai apparently have boxes on employee paperwork that ask for the ‘English name’ as well as the native name.
Here’s an interesting anecdote (via Freakonomics/New York Times):
Another of Hsu’s friends, who goes by dozens of names depending on the situation, tells him “a name is just a dai hao.”
Dai hao, or label / tag – something most netizens will be familiar with, given the prevalence of internet services requiring a username that (especially since the Web2.0 explosion of social services) becomes a major part of their face when interacting with the other users of the service – e.g. twitter handles, chatroom avatars, etc. The West has always had nicknames between friends – but to be introduced by others using your aliases, aliases that seemingly have parity with your given name – seems odd to me.
It doubt our society – already close to this point – is heading the same wayThere are, apparently, longstanding Chinese history and social dynamics (which I know too little about) are crucial to getting there.
Taking English names also fits with various traditional Chinese naming practices. In the past, children were given “milk names” when they were born, and then public names once they started school. Professionals and scholars used pseudonyms, or hao, that signified membership in an educated class. Confucius, born Kong Qiu, sometimes wrote under his zi, or courtesy name, Zhongni. Even now, Chinese sometimes take new names to mark the start of a new job, entry to graduate school, or a marriage, as my coworkers Alpha and Beta did. They subsequently named their son Gamma. (For the record, Alpha is the male.) (source)
I wonder what the effect is on psychology and commerce, when so little of your identity – even the name your parents gave you – is nailed down. I it empowering, to choose your own name and fully define your identity (this, in a communist country!). Does it correlate with the abandon with which Chinese teens threw themselves into virtual worlds (see a pic below to see just how big this internet cafe we stumbled upon was – the first of many just like it) and buy virtual goods (a market estimated to be between $1-$2 bn, with some estimates in putting it at $5bn – now taxed at 20% by the Chinese government).
![IMG_1365[1]](http://lh6.ggpht.com/_3Mb4VhI7E7o/SOw2rCHpLoI/AAAAAAAAA_o/t1DdlxMSoXU/s640/IMG_1365.JPG "IMG_1365[1]")
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