Why do so many Chinese people have English names?
interesting read.
http://www.slate.com/id/2217001/pagenum/all
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May
06
2009
06
2009
interesting read.
http://www.slate.com/id/2217001/pagenum/all
RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URL
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it’s utilitarian for sure. i would be surprised if it really catches on like the article kind of suggests.
one reason flare may have posted this is b/c me and him talked about this exact issue while we were in shanghai. most of the younger ppl we met had taken an english name and didn’t bother to give us their chinese names.
and even tho we both spoke chinese it was difficult for us to remember chinese names. we had to come up w/ mnemonic devices or english sounding nicknames to remember ppl that didn’t use english names.
that’s probably to ppl they know to be expats tho. i doubt younger chinese ppl prefer english names when just amongst themselves. they probably don’t have an issue with remembering chinese names also.