Sunday, September 17, 2006

What's in a name?

Music: The Arrogant Sons of Bitches - "Yeah I Don't Know What Its Like to Be Around a Bunch of Hipsters"
KMs walked today: Approx 10
Why: I got lost. Sort of.


Okay, so in China, everybody has an English name (anybody who is learning or speaking English anyway). They get to pick these names for themselves, and some of them seem to change them pretty frequently (often the kids will have no idea who you are talking about when you refer to one of their classmates by their English name).

Anyway, some of the names they pick are pretty damn funny. My job description here includes familiarising the students with 'Western customs and cultures'. I'm not sure if this extends to taking a guy aside and telling him: "You probably don't want to walk into a board-room in a western country and introduce yourself as 'Sparkler'".

So, for your 'laughing at people because they are different' pleasure, here are some of the standout names of my students.

Firstly, some of the teachers' names:

Perky (my main guide around Liaoyang so far, and helper of buying things person)
Raphael (who as far as I know, neither paints, nor weilds a bo-staff and purple eye mask)

The food groups:

Sugar
Cherry
Apple
Lemon
Tulip (I'm sure you could eat one if you had too)
Chocolate
Banana
Candy
Macaroon (seriously)

The old-fashioned:

Doris
Flora
Arlene

And the just plain weird:

Prince (formerly 'King' apparently)
Yo-yo
Lotus
Sparkler (see above)
Maybo
Wensen (Winston maybe? That's how he spells it anyway)
Essens
Lucky


My friend Fred (the only other foreign teacher here that I'm aware of)claims that he once had a student called 'Shits'.


I got lost today because I went right here thinking it would be a 'shortcut' when I should've just gone straight.





And finally, here's an old motorcycle that I photographed today.



Comments including the use of the letter 'R' will be rejected. Um, ejected.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

this motocycle is a jaiyang aw something like that.
It is a cheap chinese wip off of a Wussian Uwal motocycle

A Uwal is a cheap wussian wip off of a 1940s BMW. Still in pwoduction I believe.

You could wide one of these wound and wound some pwetty wuff woads in the wemote wegions of the wepublic.

little Alex said...

yes, the crazy kid who can't stop commenting today. anyway.

wensen is probably "Vincent"?

Candy is a pretty commonly accepted nickname for Candice, methinks.

As to the rest... Um, I'm a HKer; I have no idea how the mainlanders come up with names.