On Names

This morning my alarm went off at 5:45 a.m. I shivered my way to the shower and got some wonton soup at the only place on my street that served breakfast at 6:15. I grabbed a taxi and headed off to four classes in a row of middle school students. I had been warned by the other teachers that middle school students were quiet and didn't like to speak in class, but I found them easier to relate to and control than my elementary schoolers. The tongue twisters went over pretty well, perhaps the most pedagogically effective being "six thick thistle sticks" given the difficulty most of the world has with the English th sound.

Every Chinese student of English receives an English name at some point in their career, just as I was given a Chinese name in my first week of study. Having an English name is an important way to relate to the language, but some of the names they end up with are truly mystifying. I've met young Chinese people about my age who have names like Enya, Chopin, Ghost, Devil, and Shadow. The woman who gave me my job here is Echo. People frequently don't know how to pronounce their own name correctly, which further adds to the confusion. I always wondered how kids ended up with such strange names, but Shannon, my fellow teacher, cleared things up a bit for me the other day.

She came back from class, reporting that she had named kids Hunter and Thompson, Jack and Daniel, Marilyn and Manson. One student, after being given the name Jack, had responded "jacket," which she decided to make official. I thought she was taking the privilege of naming kids, something that people normally only get to do with their own, a little too lightly, especially since many of them will end up keeping their new names into adulthood. In the few instances when I've gotten to give my kids names, I've tried to stick to pretty common ones, and I've started naming the kids after my friends. I've already got a Matt and a Nick, but when I tried to name a kid Benny, he rejected it since it sounded too much like ben, the Chinese word for stupid. Maybe I'll start taking photos of the kids I've named after people I know, so you can see what kind of damage is being wrought with your names. I guess they can always change them later...