Tuesday, November 28, 2006

What's in a Name? (Round Two)

Have you ever thought about how funny it would be if you went to some far-flung country and found out that your name meant something rude/offensive/funny in the local lingo?

Well, today I discovered this:

ben stupid

You'd think that in three months, somebody might have told me. Till now, I've been using this one:

ben root

But I think I'm going to switch. Also my surname 'Shaw' sounds a bit like 'xiao' which means 'Young'. (Respect and status in China are mostly predicated on how old you are.)

So everytime I introduce myself, I'm basically saying I'm young and stupid.

If the shoe fits...

3 comments:

Unknown said...

Well, sir, I have to say your blog is my best literary discover for this good ol' 2006.
Kia haka, everybody's been young and foolish (you don'te seem to be, but it's just my opinion)

Unknown said...

what would "The Red Falcon" translate to?

Anonymous said...

I have to say that when we chose your name, and we did so with a lot of thought, it didn't translate to any of those. If I knew all those years ago that you would be going to China, I would have researched it more thoroughly and given you an honorable chinese translation...sorry son xx