31 October 2014

Gentlefolk,

Feedback on the last post (about my classes & students) suggested it was too detailed . That's useful. I will try to keep posts down to a couple of subjects only, and relatively brief.

This post has two parts: some photos of our new apartment and the bay, and a description of Chinese names.

Our apartment

We have now been in our new apartment for about 3 weeks.  Vera has bought odds & ends to make the place homely, and we are feeling quite settled.  It is a bit smaller than our previous abode, and further from the teaching buildings and dining halls; the TV still hasn't been connected, and the exhaust fan in the bathroom has stopped working, but other than that we are  pretty happy in our new apartment.

Certainly enjoy the "million-dollar-views" across the bay.

Viewed from the entrance door, looking towards the living room and the balcony beyond. The door to the bedroom is on the left.

Looking from the balcony back into our living room and the kitchen.  The entrance door is on the left. Vera is getting something out of the fridge.  

Our bedroom, taken from the balcony end.  We have since acquired a chest of drawers which completes the fit out.

Photo taken at 7am on 24 October 2014 from our balcony where we usually have breakfast looking out across the bay.  It was a hazy morning, and visibility was only about 1.5 km - we could just make out the other side of Tang Dao Wan bay.  Being right on the coast, the air quality is usually not too bad - certainly better than Beijing, which has experienced many days of bad smog this month.

A 'fish-eye' shot of the bay from our balcony window.  I have never seen the tide so low - people were walking across to Cow Island a part of which is visible on the right side of the photo.  There is a deeper channel across the other side of the bay which boats must use at low tide.

A few hours later it was high tide - no way you could walk to Cow Island now!  We could clearly see the Wyndham Hotel across the bay, and Ling Shan Dao and the Yellow Sea in the distance.

A view of the university from the other side of Tang Dao Wan bay.  Our new apartment is on the 13th floor of the building at the right side of the photo (it may be difficult to see, but the sun is glinting off  the windows).  The tall building to the left of our building is still under construction and will be an engineering teaching building.  The rugged Xiao Zhu Shan mountains are in the distance.

It's 12 noon, students have just finished morning classes and are going to lunch.  Most students eat quickly and then have a nap before their next class at 2pm.

Chinese Names

Naming format

Most countries in the world put a person’s given name first, and family name last.  But Chinese always put the family name first and then the given name (Japanese and Koreans also use this format).  As far as I am aware, only one country in Europe, Hungary, uses the same format at China.

 

Family names (surnames)

There are about 2,000 Chinese family names.  The 100 most common surnames are used by 85% of the population.  In fact, the colloquial expression ‘laobaixing’ (老百姓; literally "old one-hundred surnames") is used in Chinese to mean "ordinary folks" or "the people".

Table 1 (below) shows the 30 most common Chinese family names. 

If you grew up thinking that Smith, Jones and Brown are the most common surnames in the world, sorry to disappoint you.  The top three Chinese surnames are Li (pronounced ‘Lee’), Wang (‘Wung’), and Zhang (‘Jung’).  They have about 100 million adherents each and would be, by a long way, the most common surnames in the world.

Table 1:  List of the 30 most common surnames in China

1	Li	11	Xu	21	Zheng
2	Wang	12	Sun	22	Luo
3	Zhang	13	Zhu	23	Song
4	Liu	14	Ma	24	Xie
5	Chen	15	Hu	25	Tang
6	Yang	16	Guo	26	Han
7	Huang	17	Lin	27	Cao
8	Zhao	18	He	28	Xu
9	Zhou	19	Gao	29	Deng
10	Wu	20	Liang	30	Xiao

Chinese use European pronunciation of the alphabet, which can be difficult for people who only speak English. For example, Li is pronounced ‘Lee’, Wang sounds like ‘Wung’, Zhang is like ‘Jung’, Liu is 'Lee-you', Chen is the same as in English, but Yang sounds like 'Yung', and Huang is 'Who-ung'.

If you are going to spend any length of time in China, it would be worthwhile to get the pronunciation right, because it really grates when a person's name is not pronounced correctly.

Almost all Chinese surnames comprise one character.  There are about twenty surnames which have two Chinese characters (such as Si-ma, Zhu-ge, and Ou-yang).  A few even have three or four characters, but those are not ethnically Han-Chinese names.  For example, Aixinjueluo comprises 4 Chinese characters (愛新覺羅) and was the family name of the Manchu royal family of the Qing Dynasty.

There are many Chinese dialects which means that the same surname can be pronounced differently depending on where the person is living (China or Taiwan or South East Asia), and the way the name is written in pinyin can also vary.  For example: the surname Zheng  can be written in pinyin (English) also as Chang, Cheng, Chung, Tsang, or Zeng.  But Chinese know exactly which name it is when they see the written character (Zheng: 郑) .

Family names are patrilineal, passed from father to children. When Chinese couples marry, the woman/wife keeps her maiden name; children take the father’s surname.

Given names

Chinese are much more aware than Westerners of the meanings of their given names.  Children are given names which are considered auspicious (for example, aspirational names which hope they will grow up to be healthy, beautiful and rich).

 

English given names also have meanings, but often Westerners do not know the meaning of their own given names.  In contrast, when a Chinese student adopts an English name they always research the origin and meaning of that name.

I asked one of my classes for the meanings of their given names; Table 2 (below) shows some of their answers. 

Table 2: Meanings of given names of selected English Majors

Chinese name (in pinyin)  Family name first, followed by given name	Meanings of given names
Chang Lin	There was a Chinese song for the 1992 Olympic Games, the year she was born, which used the word ‘Lin’ and her parents liked it.  Lin can also mean ‘jade’ which is a desirable semi-precious stone.
Xie Pan	Pan means ‘hope’.  Every Chinese family wants a boy, and her parents named her Pan in the hope that the next child would be a boy.  And, true enough, the next child was a boy, her brother, who is now 10 years old.  Her parents had to pay a fine of Y10,000 for having a second child.
Wang Mei Na	Mei means ‘beautiful’; Na means ‘slim’.  Her parents were hoping that she would be a slim, quiet, beauty.  Blanche said that she turned out quite different: she is a noisy tom-boy, keen on adventurous activities!
Zhou Sheng Yu	Sheng means ‘own’ and Yu refers to ‘jade’ so together they represent her parent’s hope for her future financial success.
Wu Han	Han refers to ‘wisdom’.  When her mother was pregnant, she had a dream in which a wise old man recommended the name Han.
Meng Xiang Xue	Xiang means ‘lucky’.  Lucy said that all her extended family uses this character in their given names.  Xue refers to ‘winter’ because she was born in winter.
Liu Miao Miao	She said that Miao refers to ‘a small plant’ or ‘tree’.  A teacher her parents admired was called Miao Miao, and so her parents gave her that name as they dreamt that she would one day also become a teacher.
Liu Guang Yan	Guang means ‘wide’ (Guang is often part of the given names in her extended family) and Yan means ‘colourful’.  Her father hoped that she would be broadminded and have a good life.
Shen Xiao Ru	Xiao means ‘small’ and Ru is an old Chinese word for ‘eating’.  Her friends call her ‘snack’.  The name she was given at birth was Shen Meng Yue, but when she was 9 years old a fortune teller convinced her parents that she would have a better future with a new given name.  So she got the name Xiao Ru – but she prefers Meng Yue!
Wang Yin Huan	Yin means ‘gold’ and Huan means ‘happiness’.  This was also the given name of one of the 4 famous beauties in China’s history, Yang Yin Huan, and her parents hoped their daughter would be like her.
Diao Pin Yu	Yu means ‘rain’ (it was raining the day he was born), and Pin means ‘light’ – so his name means Light Rain or Drizzle.
Huang Chin Xiao	Chun means ‘spring’, and Xiao means ‘morning’.  His uncle chose the name, which is also the title of a famous ancient poem.
Xu Yong Bin	Yong means ‘forever’ and Bin means ‘friend’.  His parents hoped that he would make long-lasting friendships.
Wu Chuan Ze	Chuan means ‘deliver’ and is a common generational name in his extended family.  Ze means ‘growth after rain’.  It is the same character as in Mao Ze Dong, so popular for names.

About 60% of Chinese given names comprise two characters, and about 40% consist of only one character.

When a given name has two characters, the pinyin (Romanised) version is usually written as one word - for example, Mao Zedong – although the Chinese version comprises three distinct characters. You may have noticed that in my blog I usually list each character separately (eg Mao Ze Dong), although I realise that is not normal practice.

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'Papa Andy' (my brother) admiring his grand-daughter, Hinamoana, in Rarotonga. Her name means "moonlight on the ocean".

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Today is my sister's birthday.  Best wishes for today and the year ahead, Angie !!!

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Well, folks, that's it for this post.  As you know, I normally compile a list of major news items each month but will do another post in a day or two with October's events.

Keep well, and keep smiling.

Alex & Vera Olah
English teachers at the China University of Petroleum, Qingdao
www.upc.edu.cn
Friday, 31 October 2014