My job frequently requires me to correspond with attorneys in China. Where attorney is rather westernized, their name will be something along the lines of Bruce Lee and I would address the letter to Mr. Lee. However, traditional Chinese names throw me for a loop as I seem to remember that the names are reversed in order from western names.
This whole affair goes back to time spent working on a project as an undergrad under the supervision of a Chinese grad student. He know exactly what he was doing on the project but I couldn’t understand him very well as his accent was still very thick. At some point I got confused as to what his first name was as his name was used differently by a couple of people we were working with. Either someone was being informal or I was backward.
Yes, the Chinese, like many other Asians, put the family name first and given name last. Mao ZeDong’s family name is Mao, given name(s) ZeDong. But if they are dealing with western people they might reverse it, especially is they take an English name. So, There is no doubt that Linda Chen’s family name is Chen and the name she has chosen is Linda.
Another example is that of the famous American scientist Wen Ho Lee, who was wrongly accused of spying for China. In China, he would be referred to as Lee Wen Ho.
What I try to do to help people out is Capitalize the family name.
MAO Zedong or Zedong MAO.
Normally, it is surname, first name, middle name. Occaisionally, some3 of the surnames are actually two syllables such as SI-MA. Also, many people have only a first name and no middle name (this is a real common practice in Shanghai) such as basketball star YAO Ming.
However, when the name is romanized and then sometimes written the western way and sometimes not, it really gets confusing.
Generally the world has yet to follow my capitalization lead, but if you see it that way then it should be clear.
May not be as uncommon as you think. The liner notes to my Pizzicato 5 CDs (Japanese, not Chinese) capitalize the family name, as in NOMI Makiya for the lead singer, and I know I’ve seen this practice elsewhere. As a clueless gwei-loh / gaijin, I appreciate it.
I’ve had one publication that required the author name to be written in “LASTNAME Firstname” form. More common is the “Lastname, Firstname” form. The comma should make it clear that the first part is the family name.
i think names should just be left alone. zedong mao justs sounds wrong. if people don’t switch names around then everyone would know names from china has the family name first, no problem.
how would you like your name called backwards when you’re in china? finn cj, Squirrel_Rabid, Guy China, Hassenpfeffer Bambi, Schwarzenegger Arnold, Bush George, Adams Cecil, Licious Satisfying Andy etc etc
Shijinn is right. It’s sort of irritating Chinese family names are always reversed in order.
Yao is indeed the family name of Yao Ming. I think it’s a cultural misunderstanding if he’s known as Yao in the US.
This does not only apply to Chinese names. The reversal of name order is even more entrenched in romanized Japanese names. Japanese premier Junichiro KOIZUMI is actually known as KOIZUMI Junichiro in Japan.
I’ll let some of the Japan dopers talk about gaijin. However, it is just a shortened form of gaigokkujin. The word translates along the lines of “alien” or “outsider”. Some people don’t like it because of the “gai” or “outside” connotation. Implication of not being equal.
“gwei” means “ghost” or “devil” and has a different connotation in the chinese culture than in the west. It is always negative.
As for Yao Ming, isn’t it proper that Americans refer to him as “Yao?” After all, it’s “Chairman Mao” or simply “Mao.” It’s a sign of respect to refer to someone by his family name (to be proper, we should perhaps say “Mr. Yao”). And, since few of us know him personally, it wouldn’t be appropriate to call him “Ming.”
Well, like any word it depends on usage. “Clueless” is also a negative word. I suppose gwailo is an insult if used as an insult but I have seen it used often with no negative intention and I have found that it gets a smile and breaks the ice if I use it to refer to myself. My friends in Guangzhou use it in phrases like “you’ll like the food there; it’s Chinese food but Chinese food for gwailors”. Or maybe they are secretly insulting me like the joke about the black slaves saying "just wait until the owner finds out ‘masa’ means ‘son of a bitch’ " .
Rather not go off too far on a tangent. actually, Sailor, I’m of the thought that it is an insult. “Gwei” or ghost is always a negative word. Many Cantonese have always used the word and so haven’t made a concious racist decision, but it still isn’t a good thing.
This is a sort-of related question, I think: Is it common/polite in China for people to be referred to by their whole name? A number of years ago my husband worked in a lab with a Chinese woman who was always referred to to as Chen Bing–never just as Bing–and he told me that he had been informed by other coworkers that they called her that to be polite. The idea was that only really close friends or family members would not be expected to use her whole name.
I have since worked with other people from China who reversed the order of their names and didn’t seem to wince visibly when called by their “first” name.
Well, generally in china you would call her Ms. Chen or Ms. Chen Bing. Calling her Bing would imply familiarity that probably doesn’t exist. Eg, Bing owuld be fine for family, classmates, close friends, and maybe or maybe not co-workers.
Using the whole family and given name is fine as in Chen Bing. If you reversed it to Bing Chen, she’s probably used to it being in the US for a while. Probably the easiest is to ask her how she would like to be called, and what would she normally be called in China by a coworker. Most people are happy to explain this ad nauseum especially if you express up front you’d like to understand this bit of Chinese culture.
IMHO there is little difference whether you’re chinese or american; i wouldn’t call you by your full name unless i don’t know you, in which case a ‘mr’ would be necessary. off hand the only situations where i can think of someone being called by their full name; is during a roll call or when you want to be rude (spoken with inflection)
and as China Guy said, the easiest thing to do is ask.
Worse still is how my Canto colleagues in Hong Kong referred to black people: “Hak gwai”* - “Black devil”. That’s even worse than what they called us whities. Neither is a non-racist term, though both are probably formed from ignorance in the most part.
*I actually stormed out of a meeting the first time I heard this used.