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Don't read too much into use of foreign monikers
By Wang Yong |
March 2, 2011, Wednesday
|
Print Edition
Print Edition
TO use English names or not - that is not the question for Chinese like me.
My wife has an English name. I don't.
It never occurs to me that my wife is less proud of Chinese culture than I am just because she prefers to use her English name at work. Both of us deeply appreciate classical Chinese culture as well as Western culture. In many ways, my wife is better versed in both cultures than I.
We have a friend (100 percent Chinese) who has no English name but otherwise is a hopeless worshiper of things Western.
Our friend hates classical Chinese music but blindly praises classical piano though she knows little about piano.
Mr Eric Davis is certainly right to note that many Chinese adopt an English name out of a cultural inferiority complex, but they do not represent all Chinese who happen to have an English name (or a German or Japanese name when working with German or Japanese companies).
Rather than a sign of cultural inferiority feelings, using an English name at work might be a signal of respect for another culture.
Indeed, whenever a foreigner tells me his or her carefully chosen Chinese name, I feel that he or she loves and appreciates Chinese culture. Never would I think for a second that he or she belittles his or her own culture.
A rose by any other name is indeed as sweet. If a rose is no longer sweet, it may have changed at heart, not in name.
My wife has an English name. I don't.
It never occurs to me that my wife is less proud of Chinese culture than I am just because she prefers to use her English name at work. Both of us deeply appreciate classical Chinese culture as well as Western culture. In many ways, my wife is better versed in both cultures than I.
We have a friend (100 percent Chinese) who has no English name but otherwise is a hopeless worshiper of things Western.
Our friend hates classical Chinese music but blindly praises classical piano though she knows little about piano.
Mr Eric Davis is certainly right to note that many Chinese adopt an English name out of a cultural inferiority complex, but they do not represent all Chinese who happen to have an English name (or a German or Japanese name when working with German or Japanese companies).
Rather than a sign of cultural inferiority feelings, using an English name at work might be a signal of respect for another culture.
Indeed, whenever a foreigner tells me his or her carefully chosen Chinese name, I feel that he or she loves and appreciates Chinese culture. Never would I think for a second that he or she belittles his or her own culture.
A rose by any other name is indeed as sweet. If a rose is no longer sweet, it may have changed at heart, not in name.
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