Jobs, James, and Chinese Names

It is customary for Chinese students to choose an English name for their English classes.  Sometimes, they use it as a nickname among friends or as a profile name for online accounts.  There are two major factors involved in this selection that collide and, while not quite forming a perfect storm, do spread a spattering of bizarre and comical English names.

First, there are the inner workings of Chinese culture that guide Chinese students' thinking and, when it comes to selecting a name from a foreign culture, quite often lead them wrong.  It is not as easy as an American using Juan for John in Spanish class.  Chinese as a language has no common ground with English, so translations between the two cannot maintain the spirit and sound of the original language.  Added to that, Chinese names follow traditional conventions that are embedded in the culture.  It is not as simple as flipping through a book of baby names and choosing "Ethan" because that name is fashionable now and you like its sound.  A Chinese baby will have a family name followed by (traditionally) a generation name and a given name.  And because every written Chinese character has a literal meaning, most every Chinese knows what every part of their full name means or conveys.

I had a student ask me to help her choose an English name that was related to water and meant calm.  With the meaningless names in English-speaking culture, that's not so easy to do.  Lacking an encyclopedic knowledge of names, I  focused on "calm" and suggested she use Serena, but she sifted through some possibilities and settled on Delphine.  I think Delphine is a pretty name and her choice worked out, but she vetted quite a few candidates first and asked a native speaker about their soundness.  Now, imagine the pitfalls awaiting those who would strike out independently to choose their own name.  If the shoe were on the other foot, imagine you tried choosing your own Chinese name.  My guess is that it would be some variant of a famous Chinese actor's name, or you might just tack "Lee" onto the end of your real name.  And by the way, did you know that Bruce Lee's full Chinese name translates to Li Little Dragon?  I knew his nickname was "The Dragon," but I found that in Chinese culture, not only are children named after objects, with dragons being as popular as they are, children can be named Little Dragon.  Americans anymore seem to go for a 3:1 mix of traditional to made-up/nonsense names, but Little Dragon Hansen would still make the "News of the Weird" section of the newspaper.

My first Chinese name was given to me by my friend and Chinese tutor, Caili Ma.  She asked what my name meant, then listened to the pronunciation of my surname, and came up with Li Da-Sen (李大森).  I think the written characters are beautiful and this name has a good sound, but my Aunt Fang told me it was no good based on Tai Chi naming principles (e.g. Make sure the name has a good number of horizontal strokes), plus it was the name of a bad character in some kind of story or myth.  I insisted that I wanted to keep the name to honor my friend, Caili, but Aunt Fang insisted that Caili would be fine with the change, and her friends all echoed that it had an unpleasant meaning and persuaded me to go with Le Da-Sheng (乐达声), which means "joy" and "to pass on."  In my opinion, the name looks ugly on paper and doesn't sound much better, but it's not my language, so I had to defer and trust Aunt Fang on this one.

At my house with Caili.  She probably considered naming me "White Giant."

This brings me to the second factor in poor English name selection: the naïve or ignorant preference for favorite words and names heard in English language popular culture.  Chinese students often like to watch foreign television shows and films online.  Many like the serials from South Korea and Thailand, the anime from Japan, and popular dramas and comedies from America (I mentioned this before, but I was told on multiple first meetings that I looked like the Michael Scofield character from Prison Break).  Even though Friends was big in China, I never met any Ross or Rachel's.  So while the English language media has its influence, I don't mean to suggest that young Chinese students made a custom out of naming themselves for their favorite fictional character.  Although this does happen a fair amount and Elizabeth was a very popular name for girls due to the popularity of Pride and Prejudice in its film and novel forms.  And one girl, a very good student actually, had chosen Wasabe as her English name (go figure) because it was the name of a character in one of her favorite movies.

So what were the names chosen for English class and online profiles, both popular and ridiculous?  Well, the most popular names were the most sensible: Leo and Lily.  This was a simple switch from the Chinese surnames Li, Le, and Liu.  There were also quite a few traditional names like James, John, and Sarah.  In one class, a couple students even added English surnames, so I had the very plain John Smith and the Batman villain-inspired James Riddler.  James was an odd duck, and yes, I made a point of calling them by their full names in class because I got a kick out of calling Chinese students "John Smith" and "James Riddler."  Speaking of ducks and other animals, in that same class I had a student who went by Monkey, another who went by Koala, and of course following Koala there was a student named Bear.  These guys didn't have much explanation for their names ("Because I'm a Monkey!  He, he!"), but I remember Bear said his was a nickname donned him for his temper.  Bear was real pleasant in class, but the first day I thought he was a member of the faculty or somebody's parent because he had a dark, strong complexion that made him look 20 years older than everyone else.  I would have believed him if he would have told me, "I'm Koala's dad, and that's why my name is Bear."

From l-r their names (used in English class) are Maxwell, Sun Xue Tao, Monkey, Bear, Li Wei Ying, and Goofy

I had a student with the name of Jobs, and I asked him, "You mean like Steve Jobs?  Why not go by Steve?"  Well, I had several classes do an exercise where they thought up interview questions for famous people like Steve Jobs.  To a person, every student began their question, "Jobs, may I ask you such and such?"  And I kept correcting them, "You can't just call him 'Jobs.'  If you're speaking to him, you should call him Mr. Jobs."  This surname convention confused me when students would ask me about the ever popular NBA and if I liked James.  "Do I like James?  James who?"  Then they would ask, "Do you like James or Kobe?"  And it would dawn on me, "Oh, you mean LeBron James.  Everyone just calls him LeBron."  Well, not in China they don't.

One student went by Jet, after Jet Li, which I thought was pretty cool but not very practical if he ever found himself living or doing business internationally.  As for other movie and television characters, one girl went by Sherry (this name was used quite a bit because it is not too distant from the sound of several Chinese names) who wanted to change her name because her classmate also went by Sherry.  So she opted for Conan, her favorite anime character.  I tried to convince her otherwise, but she loved the name so much she didn't care that it was for boys.  See what I mean about the absurdities of choosing a pet name or word?

At my pleading, Conan has since chosen to go by her Chinese nickname, Xiao.  I've been thinking about using this picture for the cover of a book called China: Not Always Bad

Disasters could still happen when sticking close to the original Chinese name and trying to adapt it.  Although I had a student with a Chinese name of Little Moon who aptly went by Luna in English, I also had a student who went by Goofy after his Chinese name, Gao Fei.  Goofy was a fluent English speaker with a broad knowledge of English speaking culture, he just liked using a strange name because it was a suitable nickname for him and that's how friends knew him online.  And there were real names that were just awkward or antiquated, like Queena and Hyacinth, which I both find to be lovely names, but do strike me as peculiar.  As a side note, I do wish I could have met a Tim, Gary, or Al (I did meet a Bill and a Rick), with a run-of-the-mill American name.

The most shameful, unknowingly stupid names, though, came when Chinese speakers chose objects- words with literal meanings- and declared them to be their English name.  Now, for women this can work.  There were Lily's, like I mentioned, and other plant names like Daisy and Ivy, and nature names like Summer also work to an extent.  I met a girl named Spring and I told her, "Summer Autumn, and Winter are all women's names, but I've never heard of Spring as a name, and I can't explain why."  One girl covered every base by going with Season (at least I think that was her intent, she may have been a big fan of nutmeg).  I also met a Snowy and a Rainbow, who was a sweet girl, and I had to stifle myself from blurting out to her, "Rainbow is not a name!"

One male student went by Sky.  Not short for Skyler, simply Sky.  He was probably the most entertaining student I had; whenever I called on him the whole class would react with anticipation and start cracking up as he formed sentences through convulsions of laughter.  He was responsible for the third funniest moment I had in the classroom, which went like this: I was leading a discussion about Chinese perceptions of America and American perceptions of China, and the students were quiet and unresponsive as usual, so I was repeating myself, "What's famous in China?  Come on, what's famous in China?"  A murmur started to build and I asked, "What?"  And the class responded, "You!"  I said, "Well, maybe I'm famous here in Fengyang" (a small city where I was the only white foreigner).  Then Sky, with a big, sideways grin across his face, spoke up and said, "You are famous in my heart!"  Everyone lost it for a moment and I had to wipe the tears away from my eyes and laugh it all out before I could regain my composure.

On the last day of class, I insisted on taking a picture with Sky.  I should have insisted on using a tripod.

Other odd literal names included Key, and pet names like Cookie and Cherry.  One student was called Loose, and that sounded too stupid to be true, surely I misheard that, so I called him Lewis until I saw Loose written down on the attendance sheet.  Loose himself never corrected me because A) he never showed up to class, and B) he couldn't understand a word of spoken English.  The mixed bag of nonsense was filled with names like Effil, Vienen, Disie (who was an English teacher and ought to know better), and Songsux ("My Chinese name is Song, so my English name is Songsux.  It has no meaning!"  I didn't have the heart to burst his bubble).

All of these bizarre names are neither the exception nor the rule, but a farcical phenomenon when meeting Chinese English speakers of any ability.  This sampling does not deny that there were plenty of good choices like Amy, Emily, Peter, Paul, Jenny, and the (sigh) Twilight-inspired Bella.  I think my favorite of all was Milton, the name chosen, fittingly, by the head of the university's English department.

I have saved my favorite stupid name for last, a run-off between two outlandish competitors.  The first was from a middle school boy who came up to me and shouted in that Chinese way of speaking, "My English name 'Beyond.'"  "'Beyond?!'" I said, and I didn't know whether to guffaw or bridle so I did both.  "That's not even a noun, it's an adverb."  It is a preposition, too.  I think the kid was excited with his choice, and I didn't mean to crush him by being far less than impressed, but that name was just too much.

The other unforgettable, infamous name shocked me when I was out to lunch with a group of other foreign English teachers and a few Chinese students and teachers.  One Chinese owner of a small English school, a little pudgy and maybe a couple years older than I was, came up to me and shook my hand with a look on his face and such conviction in his grip that I felt like I were a national hero who had just returned from a rocket trip to the moon.  "Hello, I am Hamburger," he said, "I really like to make a friend with you."  I couldn't help but laugh.  "Hamburger, I really like your name."  Hamburger was one of those who became a little obsessive of me and wanted to be possessive of my time.

One last thing I'll mention on names.  My Aunt Fang had chosen the name Rose for herself, and her husband, my "Uncle" Jiang, asked me for assistance in selecting an English name and told me he liked the name Jack.  That is what he ended up choosing, so it was Jack and Rose.  It was unplanned, and it inspired a few sweet giggles, but it was romantic nonetheless.

Mantis the Movie Star: Thailand, Part 3

In planning our trip, Andrew and I allotted as many days as possible for our time in Thailand.  For me, this meant my semester break minus a week for travel time in China.  But for Andrew, putting together the weekends and his Paid Time Off gave him around ten days in the Land of Smiles- about a week less than I had.  We got to experience a lot together: two Muay Thai gyms, fights at the famous Lumpini Stadium and also in Pattaya, the wild, seedy streets of Pattaya, an afternoon trip to Koh Larn Island off of Pattaya, seeing the sites in Bangkok, and enjoying the cheap prices throughout Thailand.

It was Andrew's first time in Asia, so the ambiance and culture were surprising, fun, novel, and charming.  Thanks to Andrew, I was able to experience and appreciate so much more than I would have alone.  He brought his travel guides and he had researched our destinations, so we made wise use of our time and saw what Thailand had to offer outside the boxing ring.  Unfortunately, we weren't able to visit a national park (Andrew's goal) or go on an elephant ride (my goal).  Still, every day there was an adventure, and just being in Thailand, with its welcoming, foreigner-friendly culture, was an amazing experience.  Andrew was constantly remarking how cheap everything was, and whenever the conditions were shocking, I was explaining to him how much better things were compared to China.  ("But the drivers here stay in there lane, mostly, and there's an order to it.  They're not honking their horns and scrambling through any opening they can find.")

There was one thing missing from our trip, though.  Despite the exhilaration of experiencing a foreign country, training alongside professional boxers and a host of international amateurs, despite Andrew receiving some attention from the ladies and some attention from the trainers for his cauliflower ear ("Wow!" said Mr. Coke, "You must've had a taow-sand fights!), we hadn't experienced anything truly crazy.  We had no incredible stories to tell.

Andrew was kind enough to send me this picture.  Hold Ctrl and  scroll on your mouse wheel to zoom in on the cauliflower.

I was thinking about this on our last night in Bangkok together, as we rode in a taxi to a bar street supposedly popular with tourists and locals alike.  But we went there fairly early on a Thursday, so the street was quiet and the patio seating outside was mostly empty.  The next morning, Andrew woke up before sunrise and I saw him off to his taxi, bound for the airport.

I was by myself in a lonely hotel room, not to see another American for the next five months.  Nonetheless I was still thrilled to be in Thailand, spending my time walking around the local area in the evenings and attending work-outs during the day with only a handful of other boxers.  So it seemed that the end of my trip would pass quietly, but at the end of one day's afternoon practice, Mr. Coke came in to the gym and happily announced to me, "There gonna be a movie here tomorrow.  You gonna have a fight!"

A fight? I wondered.  For a movie?  What kind of movie, and what kind of fight?  Thailand doesn't have American safety standards, stunt coordinators, and insurance policies.  Are they going to just throw us in a ring and tell us to go at it?

"Kick him in the head!" Mr. Coke encouraged me as he walked back to the dining room, chattering in a loop about the movie.

The next morning I went for the six o'clock run and returned from the quiet, early morning streets to the 13 Coins parking lot, full of cars, pickup trucks, and a couple vans full of cables and equipment.  People were everywhere, each somehow related to the production, although I could only separate people into general categories of cast or crew.  Mr. Coke introduced me to the director, a silver-haired older gentleman who shook my hand and looked me over, and tole me he had a big name in the Thai film industry.  A couple Thai-Americans were training at the gym that week, so I asked them what this film shoot was all about.  They said Mr. Coke had connections to a production company that liked to film at 13 Coins Resort about every other month.  They could use the walkways and garden area, and there were plenty of open spaces, empty buildings, and eclectic backgrounds to stage a variety of scenes.  Sure enough, a few days later I saw a scene on TV of a kidnapped woman, bound in a chair, being rescued from an abandoned building and I recognized it as the concrete building at the far end of the parking lot that I jogged laps past every day.

How is it to be part of a film shoot?  Well, for my entire morning, as the lead actors filmed scenes of dialogue while walking through the resort's garden pathways, I busied myself by sitting and waiting.  Mind you, it was anxiety-filled waiting.  My opponent in the much-hyped fight scene arrived early on, and when he saw me, the nervous look he had in his eyes reminded me of seeing my real opponents at weigh-ins before a fight.  So the question remained whether our fight was going to be choreographed or a real fight captured on film, and I felt bad about the idea of hitting some young Thai man I'd never met before, and also scared about this young Thai man I'd never met before hitting me.  But the biggest cause for emotional strain, the chaos of the mind, was knowing that our scene was the final shot of the day, being saved for last, promoted by Mr. Coke ("Kick him in tha head!  K.O.!"), and being eagerly awaited by the actors and extras who had been brought on set just so there would be a crowd around the fight cage.  As the Thai actors filmed scene after scene, I kept asking myself, "Is this it?  Is it time yet"  Mike Tyson's legendary trainer Cus D'Amato said that having a fight is like going to the electric chair, where the dread weighs heavily on a fighter until he finally just wants to get the whole thing over with.


The other boxers training at the gym got in on one scene, lined up, hitting the heavy bags as the main characters walked past them discussing whatever business Thai serial characters discuss.  My opponent and I had to sit that one out for continuity purposes (why would the fighters be hitting the bags with everyone else before their fight?), but halfway through watching them shoot and re-shoot the walk-by, the make-up artists started their work, wrapping our hands in thin bandages and applying fake blood to our faces.

The extras were gathered around the cage, Mr. Coke could not be contained as he shouted for more head kicks, and my opponent, the referee, and I were ushered into the cage.  (The referee for the scene was the gym's trainer, Soren, wearing most of a referee's outfit- dress-shirt minus the bow-tie (I just thought I'd add another dash and hyphenated word to this sentence- T-shirt)).  One of the lead actor's had a large hoop earring and an audacious ponytail; he came into the cage and gave my opponent and me a sequence of moves to perform on each other.  I relaxed, thinking okay, this should be pretty simple.  We went back and forth, play punching and kicking each other three or four times, then filming paused and the make-up artist rushed in to add more fake blood and spray mist to our faces, and the exuberant, pony-tailed actor (okay, I tried to be cute a couple sentences back by calling attention to the hyphens, so I have to question why ponytail is a compound word but pony-tailed operates under the logic of the hyphen), well, he started going through the move set again and encouraged us to play it up and make as big of movements and expressions as possible.  Then he added another chain of techniques onto the end of what we'd been doing; about ten to twelve moves that moved us around and had me flying, knee-first, into the cage.

We worked on that some more, and then we had another round of make-up and choreography tips, but something had changed.  The cast and crew seemed to want more and the director didn't stop the action when we stopped ours.  Our choreography was over, I caught the last kick in the chain, but the pony-tailed ringleader was leading the cheers for us to go at it, and with a young Thai man whom I'd never met before gripping my head and throwing rough, play knees into my ribs, I went at it.  Mind you, we were not throwing blows with bad intentions, but the scene quickly turned into a wild, free-for-all.  The fighting was so sloppy (I wasn't applying fight strategy, just trying to play along with what my opponent did and throw some kicks back his way), and it must have looked so ugly on film, but the director can edit the cuts together however he wants, so it's better to just get a lot of material on film.  And that's what he did.  I was getting exhausted from the wild, free-for-all fighting and a little banged up from the knees and kicks thrown without caution.  The scene had a playground fight feel to it- we were two guys without any animosity towards each other, just thrown into something so everyone else could watch, goad us on, and witness two guys take turns pummeling each other.  And, just like the tussles from my elementary school memories, the playground supervisors were either not caring about the ongoing bedlam or turning a blind eye until the clamor of the crowd and the tempo of the action died down.

When the take was called to a halt, Mr. Coke and everyone seemed elated about it, and as I stepped to the side to lean against the fence, catching my breath and having my make-up fixed, three older Thai ladies started talking to me.  They spoke English, I was surprised to find out, and one of them was telling me that her friend liked me- really liked me.  I looked across the cage at the young Thai lady who had been staring at me from the start with such intensity that I thought she wanted to eat me.  But I broke free from her Medusa gaze and turned back to read the older Thai lady's body language and intuit that she was speaking about one of the other grandmotherly women.  It was too late to pretend I didn't speak English and walk away, so I just smiled awkwardly and tried to politely answer questions about where I was from and how old I was.  When I told them I was on vacation from teaching in China, they echoed what I'd heard from several other Thai's during the trip: "You look Chinese."  In China, I look "so handsome," in Thailand, I look Chinese.  Well, pretty much everywhere I look some variant of Chinese/Japanese/Vietnamese/Asian mix.  I played the "Two Truths and a Lie" party game once and said that my dad met my mom in Okinawa, and when I exposed that as the lie, one woman said, "Aw, I had this romantic image in my head and that story sounded so sweet."

Well, the fight had to come to a close, so the choreographer decided that I would be kicked in the stomach, and as I leaned forward, my opponent would finish me off with a flying knee.  We shot this sequence three or four times, and on the last take my opponent landed the knee and I took the full impact on my eye socket and forehead.  But the show must go on, and I used the pain to fuel my method acting, lying unconscious-like on the mat.  After his hand was raised and the extras in the audience went wild, my opponent came over and held his hands together in the Thai style, apologizing to me, but I just told him don't worry ("Mai bpenrai") because I knew they could use it for the final cut; they better have used it in the final cut.

After the film shoot wrapped up, the crew gave me 1000 Thai baht ($33) and a T-shirt with the name of the TV show on it.  I had a nice story to tell and I was eager to find my episode online and show it to all of my American friends.  My enthusiasm cooled quickly as I spent my remaining days confined to my hotel room in Thailand, incapacitated with traveler's diarrhea.  I'll spare the gross details save one: the air conditioner in Andrew's and my room constantly dripped through the ceiling tiles and we had been catching the water in the trashcan.  It started spilling over the top one day as I was watching Discovery Channel (the only English channel I had), and I knew that, sick as I was, I had to get up and pour it out.  Now, Andrew and I had resorted to using the trash can because it was the only large container in the hotel room, but as it was also our only trash can, it also held all of our garbage.  That water-filled trashcan was not the worst thing I can imagine thrusting my hands into, but if there were a Family Feud category for "Things I Don't Want to Thrust My Hands Into" it would have made the list.

"Flowing lava?  Number One answer!"

I spent a few more days in bed, trying to make sallies out into the gym to jump rope for a round or out to the main street to see if my stomach could stand a meal, met some Australians who were once again lovely people with happy accents (except for one who was a bloated tax agent planning on going to Pattaya to do what pigs in Pattaya do), and finally hobbled into the taxi one morning and went to the airport.  I still had to endure a queasy stomach on my flight to Hong Kong (isn't that a great situation to try and play down, when you have to get up and repeatedly use the airplane bathroom in front of everyone?).  Then it was back to China.  The Mantis had more to endure.


You can watch my scene here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BRoyGNHFC5I&feature=youtu.be