There's nothing wrong with my name. I like it, as much as anyone likes their name. The problem is, its a little....well, I'll come clean: Its Welsh. Not a problem in the UK, but give it to someone who doesn't speak English as a first language, and they'll mess it up.
In Israel people would look at it, then think for a second, try to pronounce it and mess up. In China, they don't even try. My name is basically a collection of all the letters that its hard for a Mandarin speaker to pronounce.
All this has a certain charm - unless you've spent the last few years in a country where people can't say your name anyway, and the novelty of looking different to everyone else (and being started at ALL the time) has worn off SO much already.
So - time for a new name. After some discussion with Chinese friends, I finally picked one (well, they did - I agreed). Of course, it couldn't be a normal common name (who here, when picking an English name for someone, would suggest Bob Smith? Yeah, thought so). Problem is, it being an oncommon name, coupled with my terrible Manarin pronounciation, means that no-one understands me when I say it.
So - going from having a name no-one around you can pronounce, to having one that you can't say properly...is that progress?
In addition, half the people I'm going ot be working with are Korean, so they won't pronounce it properly either - Bob Smith is looking more attractive by the minute.
Oh, and while we're on the subject of names: DaBai means literally 'Big White'. When I first met my Chinese friend, I had long hair, and she called me 'da bai lao hu' = 'big white tiger'. This got shortened to dabai.
And no, that's not my 'real' Chinese name ^^
DaBai
Friday, January 5, 2007
Thursday, January 4, 2007
A splatter of background
Its a tradition for students in the UK, at least for the more adventurous ones, to take a little time out after a degree, and go see something. So they pack their backpacks, put on a nice pair of boots, and wander off for a year. Usually they come back after a few months, when either the money or the ability to cope with sleeping on trains runs out, with longer hair, dirty boots and a thick photo album (or a few Gig of photo's).
The problem is - they had a great time, and a lot of memories. But when they talk estatically about, for example, their time in Japan - you realise that actually they were only there for a week, which was spent mostly on a train. In fact, they've travelled through 36 countries in 4 months without getting to know much about any of them. Then they get an office job in Sheffield and spend the next 40 years there.
No thanks.
Not to mention not having the money.
What I needed was a job. On the other hand, I hated Sheffield (I lived nowhere near there, but many of my friends seemed to get jobs there, in the end). So I had a plan (another late-night one) to look for work in other countries, spend a few years working 1-2 years in each, and actually get to know something a bit different.
After some filtering, it came down to New Zealand, Israel or Antartica. All cool places, but in the end I headed off to Israel for a year.
Which became 3. Which became 5. Which suddendly (in what seemed like a week) because 9 years, and I see the rest of my life here in a comfortable job, with comfortable pay and a comfortable house, being well - comfortable. But that's not the same as happy.
So I'm off again, this time to China. I just got held up for 8 years.
DaBai
The problem is - they had a great time, and a lot of memories. But when they talk estatically about, for example, their time in Japan - you realise that actually they were only there for a week, which was spent mostly on a train. In fact, they've travelled through 36 countries in 4 months without getting to know much about any of them. Then they get an office job in Sheffield and spend the next 40 years there.
No thanks.
Not to mention not having the money.
What I needed was a job. On the other hand, I hated Sheffield (I lived nowhere near there, but many of my friends seemed to get jobs there, in the end). So I had a plan (another late-night one) to look for work in other countries, spend a few years working 1-2 years in each, and actually get to know something a bit different.
After some filtering, it came down to New Zealand, Israel or Antartica. All cool places, but in the end I headed off to Israel for a year.
Which became 3. Which became 5. Which suddendly (in what seemed like a week) because 9 years, and I see the rest of my life here in a comfortable job, with comfortable pay and a comfortable house, being well - comfortable. But that's not the same as happy.
So I'm off again, this time to China. I just got held up for 8 years.
DaBai
Opening salvo
The plan was to start a blog when I arrived in China. Well - one of the plans. I make a lot of them, usually late at night. They're therefore usually worthless, but that works out fine because by the morning I've forgotten most of them, and by the second coffee I've managed to discard the others.
On the other hand, it occurs to be that a) I've technically just been there, b) I can write about all the 'getting there' stuff which might be useful, although probably not as funny and c) by the time I actually get a working connection and time to write anything, I'll have been living there for 20 years and it won't seem interesting after all.
So I can start now. Well not now - its 3am, so this counts as a late-night 'plan'. I have a lot to do tomorrow, so I don't want to spend time deleting a load of rubbish from tonight.
Dabai
On the other hand, it occurs to be that a) I've technically just been there, b) I can write about all the 'getting there' stuff which might be useful, although probably not as funny and c) by the time I actually get a working connection and time to write anything, I'll have been living there for 20 years and it won't seem interesting after all.
So I can start now. Well not now - its 3am, so this counts as a late-night 'plan'. I have a lot to do tomorrow, so I don't want to spend time deleting a load of rubbish from tonight.
Dabai
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