So Good To Change Back To My Chinese Name (Episode 2)

Episode 2 Why Did I Decide to Change Back to My Chinese Name?

In the last episode I talked about why I changed my Chinese name to Cathy and the benefits of having an English name. However, things started to change. What happened?

I felt somewhat lost. Who am I? When my friends from China sent me birthday wish voice messages via WeChat, addressing my Chinese name, I got very emotional and touched. What a beautiful and familiar sound. I realised I missed that name so much and underestimated how attached I was to my original name.

Meanwhile, I started to find my English name Cathy was too common. Sometimes when I went to a networking event, there would be a few people called Cathy. Furthermore, it didn’t mean anything to me and couldn’t represent my cultural identity.

Gradually, I discovered a desire deep in my heart: I want my birth name back. It’s my identity, my root, which makes me unique and makes me me. Moreover, this name expressed my family’s best wishes on me, so why should I change?

However, it was easier said than done. There were a lot of hurdles along the way.

In Australia, people like to address each other using first names, especially for the first time. I think because of its individualism, they see each person as a unique individual. I like the casual vibe it brings. On the contrary, in China, this is not common, it can even be considered impolite, especially to an elderly person, a leader, a teacher, etc. Therefore, we use the surname + suffix a lot. For example, if my teacher is the movie star Jackie Chan (whose real name is Cheng Long), I need to call him Cheng Laoshi (teacher). It can also be used to generalise some certain groups too. For instance, surname + ayi (aunt) is a polite way to address a woman of one's mother's generation, such as my mum’s friends or colleagues.

Back to my story. Almost no one would call me by my name even when I had my name tag on and introduced myself to others. I started to ask people why, and here were some responses that I got.

“I am so afraid to pronounce your name wrong, because I don’t want to offend you.”

Some paused a bit and asked carefully: “Well, do you have an English name which would be easier for me to pronounce?”

I didn’t blame them, because as human nature, we tend to look for easy ways.

Moreover, to be fair, my ethnic name is probably one of the hardest Chinese names for people from other countries to pronounce. The sounds of pronouncing the starting letter of my name X and Q do not exist in English words. What a great selection, hey? Therefore, people were struggling to pronounce them. Let alone to remember.

And ‘good’ news, I haven’t added tones on top of my name yet.

Some of you may not be aware that Mandarin, the official spoken language in China, is a tonal language (four tones in total), so it sounds like we are singing while talking.

With different tones, the meaning can be completely different. For example, the character ‘zhu’: with the forth tone, it can mean ‘to wish’ while when it’s in the first tone, it refers ‘pig’. I guess you don’t want to say "Pig, happy birthday to you". 😁People generally find the third tone is the hardest one to say. Guess what? My name Xue and Qian are in the third and fourth tone accordingly. Actually, the second tone of Qian can be a very useful word for you to know and learn, because it means money (To find out more about how to pronounce my name and tones, please check my video).

However, please remember we don’t expect you to get our tones right, because we know it’s hard for you. Therefore, as long as you try to pronounce our names, we will feel delighted.

As a peace lover, seeing people’s unhappy or frustrated faces (because they couldn’t get it right) made me feel bad. Then my self-talk mode turned on:

“Names are created for people to remember and to use. If others cannot pronounce my name or even feel embarrassed to call it, what’s the point? It loses its main function, unfortunately.”

So, is there any fine line in between?

Yes! Thanks to my previous housemate Rosie who is from Adelaide. She suggested: “Why not try to shorten your name to ‘Qian’? You can even write ‘Chien’ next to it, which will help people to pronounce it, because that’s how we spell it.” She then pronounced my name. Wow, not bad.

Next step, testing time, exciting.

Magic happened. I noticed people started to try to call my name when I wrote Chien on my name tag. They still double-checked with me first but at least they attempted now. Hearing that made my heart dance. I felt so connected to it, as if they pressed my heart button. No wonder Dale Carnegie said: “A person's name is to him or her the sweetest and most important sound in any language.”

Without much hesitation, I decided to change Cathy back to Qian (Chien).

1 July 2019 is a special day, as that’s the official date for me to change my name. On that day I started my new job. Even though my manager knew me as Cathy before, she happily agreed with my decision.

Content. Finally. Even though it was not Xueqian, still, way better than Cathy. Also, it was a sign indicating my openness, I acknowledged Australian culture, shortening names. I still remember I was amazed to hear some of my friends even shortened Cathy to Cath. “When in Rome, do as the Romans do”. Hence, I made this compromise, happily.

However, I didn’t expect to experience two heartfelt gestures from two people after this change. Curious? Find out om episode 3.