15 May 2017

Random stuff 2

During Kenji's humanities class he notes a fact about naming in China.

健二:中国では人名を性、名、字で表すけど、その3つをすべて続けて呼ぶことはしないみたいだ。でも諸葛亮孔明なんて言っちゃうよな。

Kenji: Chinese names have a surname, personal name and a courtesy name, and they are never all said at once. But we still say Zhuge Liang Kong Ming. 

Take it from a person who actually is Chinese. We don't actually do that. It's either Zhuge Liang or Kong Ming, not both. 

I do have a Chinese name (duh) but I don't have a courtesy name. I don't hear it a lot nowadays since everyone uses my English name. Makes sense since my Chinese name is difficult to pronounce correctly (not the syllabary, the tones are the issue). I guess the only significant group that actually calls me by my Chinese name are Chinese language teachers, and I haven't encountered one since I left high school 5 years ago. 

Even students from China call me by my English name. But then again I guess they always hear me get called my English name by my friends and so they follow them. 

Just like how I called someone in the Chinese group xian bei 先辈 (analogous to sempai in Japanese) because that was how I saw his friends call him. Even though I am the same year as he is. 

Awkward. 

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