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
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
Reading this has actually brought tears to my eyes. I've always wanted to put my thoughts in writing but never knew how til a few years ago. Maybe now is the time to set them in cement so to speak.
I've spent the last 2 years alone to figure out what I want to do and where to go. Life blew up in my face once again and it's all been more confusion. The good things that I had (family in this case) are lost, gone forever, all that remains are memories. I have no idea what direction to begin anew but I know I can do it eventually. Seeing others able to accomplish happiness renews my spirit a bit and makes me believe dreams really can come true if we all take that first step.
I love your style of writing though, always knew cats were very vocal but didn't understand them /giggle.I wish you all the happiness and love! Duine
Post a Comment