Life&Style Editor Julia Lee offers her perspective on choosing between being known as your romanised or English name as someone raised bilingual
Marvel’s newest blockbuster Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings provided long-overdue representation of the Asian diaspora in the comic book superhero genre. The film, recognising its somewhat trailblazing status, sought to include as many references to Asian life as it could– congee for breakfast, late-night karaoke, and the ever-relevant issue of anglicised names.
As someone of Asian descent, this topic rarely leaves my mind. I braced myself for an outright rejection of English names and was relieved that while it was brought up two separate times in the film, they were moments that do not categorically suggest that using an English name is somehow a denial of your true self. Note that Wenwu asks for Katy’s Chinese name, not her ‘real’ name. Even with their character arcs complete, Katy continued to use her English name and Shang-Chi answered to his Chinese name as well as his anglicised moniker Shaun.
I cannot speak for the entire Asian diaspora (especially those who live in non-English speaking non-Asian countries), but I feel the need to take up the mantle and explain some things about Chinese names that your acquaintances might not have the patience for. Rest assured I am doing this for me– as someone who has been misnamed enough times, I might as well send this to them instead of arguing my case every time it happens.
Respecting our identities is never as simple as being able to pronounce ‘Xia’ or ‘Ng’ the way you can pronounce ‘Dostoyevsky’ or ‘Daenerys’
When someone (often white) says ‘stop making it more convenient for English speakers’, and ‘we can handle learning non-English names’– but have you considered that this is not about you? Respecting our identities is never as simple as being able to pronounce ‘Xia’ or ‘Ng’ the way you can pronounce ‘Dostoyevsky’ or ‘Daenerys’– that is hardly what is at issue here. What annoys me more as an Asian person is the refusal to understand that someone can have two names that are placed in equal standing, and that first names are not equivalent to given names, nor is it what we are meant to be known as.
Let us first talk about given and family names. If we’re going strictly by Chinese names, the surname comes first. By that account, my first name would be Lee. Chinese given names are made of characters that function as morphemes, or indivisible units of language. Especially since spoken Chinese is homophonous, shortening someone’s name to one character (most given names contain two characters) would remove its function as a name.
From personal experience, if your English name is a ‘middle’ name and your romanised Chinese name is not hyphenated or joined, you might as well resign yourself to being called a nonsensical bastardisation of your given name at least half the time you are in England. If the only way you will call me my name (that is literally on my passport) is if it is the very first word of my given name, showing you somehow still cannot comprehend a naming system that differs from the English first, middle and last name tradition– you are doing a very bad job of being inclusive. If you are not willing to put in the effort to understand the nuances behind our naming traditions, swearing you will try your best to pronounce our ‘real’ names is just another way of patting yourself on the back for doing the bare minimum.
If we are demanding English speakers pronounce our names correctly, why be content with letting people halfway off the hook?
We are already using romanizations of our names. Having English letters represent Chinese characters’ pronunciations already dilutes the meaning behind them. Not to mention the myriad ways someone could romanise their names based on the dialect they speak or even the system in use at the time. The romanized ‘Xu Shang-Chi’ itself is a confounding combination of Wades-Giles and Pinyin systems, confined by his comic book origins. Taking Shang-Chi star Tony Leung Chiu-wai’s family name as an example, as someone from Cantonese-speaking Hong Kong, ‘梁’ is spelt Leung. The same family name is spelt Leong in Malaysia, Liang in Mandarin-speaking China– all of which have distinct pronunciations. Sorry Simu, Leung is pronounced ‘learn’ with a ‘g’ at the end, like how Fala Chen does in this video. He later replied to a tweet that called this out, maintaining that the guidance he gave were mere approximations. This is bizarre– if we are demanding English speakers pronounce our names correctly, why be content with letting people halfway off the hook? Ironically, cultural nuances are further eroded in the haste to make it easier for English speakers to maintain some sort of performative morality.
Like Shang-Chi’s best friend Katy said in Ten Rings, Shaun and Shang are barely distinguishable from one another. It is very common for people to take up English names that are similar or homophones to their romanised Asian names, like singer and actress Faye Wong. Whatever name you go by you’ll always be asked where you are ‘really from’, whether it is a well-meaning stranger insisting on learning your Asian name to be ‘polite’, or blatant xenophobes who would rather you disappeared from their sight. The issue isn’t our choice in using whatever name, but the society we live in where Asianness is the perpetual other. From experience, England is much guiltier of this microaggressive behaviour than say, Canada. At no point there was I ever misnamed in correspondence, whereas I have been called ‘Kin’ twice this week even after introducing myself in person.
The issue isn’t our choice in using whatever name, but the society we live in where Asianness is the perpetual other
Both my Chinese and English names were given to me by my parents– both had been carefully chosen for me when I was born. ‘健’ means health, ‘寧’ means peace, and ‘Julia’ means youth. My monolingual grandparents call me a Cantonese version of Julia. My mother calls me by my full Chinese name when she’s angry. I find I quite like being called Jules by my friends.
An increasing number of Asian diaspora are reclaiming their language and heritage, opting to be known as names in their native language. Neither is someone less Asian should they choose to be known by an English name. Some Asian people are born with their English names, their parents putting as much thought into it as their Chinese names. Some choose their own name– for convenience, for self-emancipation, whatever– and it is just as valid.
Wenwu said in Shang-Chi that ‘names are sacred’. Does it mean that they ought to be preserved in their sanctity, or broadcast in veneration? Only you can decide what empowers you– after all, ‘a rose by any other name would smell as sweet’.
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