(East-West Question) Yao Nanxun: What does the Chinese name mean to Chinese Americans?
China News Agency, Beijing, June 26th: Yao Nanxun: What does the Chinese name mean to Chinese Americans?
Author Chen Jinghan
Can Chinese Americans living in the United States give up their original Chinese names and use English names to better integrate into American society?
But the truth is - such efforts do not lead to positive change.
The new generation of Chinese people gradually realize that Chinese names full of history and culture are the "roots" they carry with them and are an important part of their cultural identity.
They called on the Chinese to use their Chinese names, and many people also used this to say no to racial discrimination.
How do Chinese Americans view their Chinese names?
What are the problems with using Chinese names in the United States, and how can Chinese names be better accepted?
Nancy Yao Maasbach, director of the Museum of Chinese in America in New York, recently accepted an exclusive interview with China News Agency's "East and West Questions" column, answering the above questions with her own and her family's personal experience.
China News Agency reporter: Can Chinese Americans in the United States better integrate into American society by changing their Chinese names to English names?
Yao Nanxun:
Integrating into American society has many meanings, such as better understanding of white culture, such as retaining one's own personality instead of being regarded as a certain type, or being assimilated and gaining respect, etc.
For example, my father, his Chinese name is Yao Ce, his English name is William YAO, and his nickname is Wille, a very American name.
I always wonder how my father made so many friends at work, maybe it's because Willie shows a sense of familiarity—everyone knows the name Willie, there's a famous baseball player named Willie profit.
Then the Americans would think, "Does he like this baseball player, maybe Willie Yao, who knows something about baseball..."
But if you tell them that your Chinese name is Yao Ce, you know that foreigners may not have any familiarity or association with the pronunciation of Cè, they will just think "What is Cè?".
But the Chinese name has always been buried in our hearts.
Although I was born in the United States, I am very proud of being the first Chinese name.
I think I am Yao Nanxun first.
When people who understand Chinese hear my Chinese name, they will ask, "Nan Xun, who gave you this name, that person must be very literate".
Compared with Nanxun, my English name Nancy is so ordinary.
Data map: Chinatown, New York, USA.
Photo by China News Agency reporter Liao Pan
China News Agency reporter: The seemingly simple Chinese name actually contains a person's relationship with family, history and culture. What are the particulars of Chinese names for children in the United States?
Yao Nanxun:
Whether to give a child a Chinese name depends on many factors.
Some people will think that it is good to give a Chinese name to a child, but what is more important is how to choose this Chinese name.
If the relationship with history and culture is not close enough, it will be very difficult to choose a good Chinese name for the child.
Even my mother, who studied Chinese literature, found it very difficult to name my children in Chinese, and in the end she had to change it over and over again because my mother didn't think her names sounded good enough.
A common trend among Chinese Americans is that we take English names that sound similar to Chinese names.
My mother's Chinese name was Gong Tianxia, so my father gave her the English name Tina because he thought Tina sounded a lot like Tiānxiá.
My brother's Chinese name is Yao Jiemei, so my father called him James and my name was Yao Nanxun, so my father chose Nancy for me - like combining Chinese and English names, which is common among Chinese Americans.
Data map: The teachers of Dinghao Chinese School in Philadelphia use pictograms to teach children to recognize Chinese characters.
Photo by China News Agency reporter Liao Pan
China News Service reporter: In the movie "Shang Qi and the Legend of the Ten Rings", Shang Qi's father said: "(Chinese) names are sacred. They not only connect us with ourselves, but also with our ancestors. Connected together." How do Chinese Americans in the United States view their Chinese names?
Yao Nanxun:
It depends on the situation, because many Chinese Americans, such as the second, third, and fourth generation, do not know their Chinese names.
There are not many Chinese-Americans who can speak Chinese, and they rarely understand how their Chinese names are written or formed.
Many Chinese Americans may have lost Chinese, and Chinese Americans who don't understand Chinese at all can't even remember their Chinese names, which is difficult for them.
People in my generation who can speak Chinese are all studying Chinese as a major or using it as a second language, and they all say to me: "Nan Xun, you can speak Chinese, this is so surprising to me, you are Born in America".
China News Agency reporter: Name is the simplest and most direct cultural symbol of a person. What are the differences between keeping and using the original Chinese name when living in the United States compared to changing to an English-cultured name?
Yao Nanxun:
I think both options have their advantages, but in some ways, if Chinese Americans can keep their original names, it will allow Americans to better understand cultural diversity.
Just like Russians, they don't change their real names when they live in the US, you can instantly recognize Russian names, they are very different from common American names.
This is also gradually becoming a trend in alphabetic languages.
There are also Japanese, they will not change their names, because Japanese itself is toneless, so there is no misunderstanding in English pronunciation.
This leaves room for understanding these foreign language names.
I think we should also show the diversity of Chinese names.
For example, "love" and "xin" are commonly used in Chinese names, which can be accepted by foreigners from the level of knowledge.
If one day, we insist on using Xin to represent "heart", slowly Americans will know that "Xin" means "heart" in Chinese.
Another example - "Dawei".
"Dawei" is often used to correspond to the English name "David", and the name "Dawei" is also very biblical. "大" and "wei" represent "greatness", which makes it easy for Americans to accept.
Data map: The streets of Chinatown in San Francisco, USA.
Photo by China News Agency reporter Liu Guanguan
China News Agency reporter: As part of the identity movement, Chinese immigrants of Generation Z are more and more inclined to use their Chinese names in the United States. Does this mean that Chinese names will be more widely accepted in the United States in the future? How to make Chinese names better accepted?
Yao Nanxun:
I am encouraged to see that the younger generation wants to keep their Chinese names.
The younger generation of Chinese grew up in a more affluent environment, they are more confident, and I think they will ask "Why can't I use my Chinese name? Why not? I have a Chinese name that existed before."
But the fact is that it is difficult for Americans to pronounce some Chinese names accurately, such as "Xūn" (Xūn) in my name, so we need to make Chinese names more acceptable to Americans.
If Chinese names can have a more systematic pronunciation system, it may bring some of the "familiarity" I mentioned earlier to Americans.
If the Chinese name sounds familiar to Americans, then they will start to want to understand, to understand a different language, to understand the culture behind it, which leaves more room for acceptance.
Pinyin is currently the easiest way.
Chinese classes taught in Pinyin are offered in middle schools, high schools and universities across the United States, and more and more Americans are exposed to the Pinyin system.
However, compared to English names, Chinese names are much more complicated, and pinyin alone is not enough, because Chinese names not only have pronunciation, they are also Chinese characters.
They don't mean anything like Tom, just an English name.
My daughter's English name is Evangeline, which is a Christian name that means messenger of good news, but not many people know what it means, and Americans just treat it as a name.
But if it is replaced by the common Chinese name "Dawei", it has its rich meaning.
Although it may be easier and easier to use Pinyin, many Asian Americans with Chinese names who did not learn Chinese through the Pinyin system, such as those from Singapore, Indonesia, Vietnam and other countries.
People from these Asian countries use the same Chinese name but spell it very differently.
The Chinese names of Singaporeans are spelled directly in letters, and like Cantonese, this spelling is more acceptable to Americans than Pinyin.
For example, there is a sound of "ch" in English, which is also spelled "ch" in Chinese names in Singapore and in most Cantonese names, but the corresponding spelling in Pinyin is "qi".
The same Chinese name is spelled differently in mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan or Singapore, which can be confusing and difficult for Americans to understand.
But that doesn't mean we have to make changes.
If we continue to change in order to make Americans understand, the status quo will not change, but we need to know why Chinese names are difficult to accept in the United States, and the most important thing is how to let Americans understand Chinese names.
What we really need to do is let Americans understand the diversity of Chinese culture.
In addition, traditional media and social media can also play a certain role in promoting, providing more space for Americans to understand Chinese names.
(Finish)
Interviewee Profile:
Nancy Yao Maasbach has been the director of the Museum of Chinese in America (MOCA) in New York since 2015, a lecturer at the Yale School of Drama, and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations of the United States.
MBA from Yale University, BA from Occidental College.
Formerly President of the Yale-China Association, one of the oldest non-profit organizations in the United States dedicated to enhancing Sino-American relations.