Did you name yourself or someone did it for you? How is your Chinese name related to your original name? Any phonic resemblance?

It would be bad joss to comment on other's name in public and any comment would not be appropriate without knowing the background of how the name came about.

When HK had British governors, After the appointment there would be a meeting of the mind of a committee in HK of feng shui masters, Chinese scholars/academics and name experts to carefully give the new governor a suitable regal Chinese name.
Examples, post WWII governors:
Sir Mark Young楊慕琦
Sir Alexander Grantham葛量洪
Sir Robert Brown Black柏立基
Sir David C.C. Trench 戴麟趾
Sir Murray MacLehose麥理浩
Sir Edward Youde尤德
Sir David Akers-Jones 鍾逸傑
Sir David Wilson 衛奕信
Chris Patten彭定康
All the Chinese "surnames" were real surnames that one would find in China.

My name was chosen by a departmental admin shortly after I arrived in BJ. It is vaguely similar sounding to my surname. I tend not to use it (in my profession, real names are important), and actually have another one that vaguely sounds like my first name, which I use even less, since that one has little meaning, whereas I really like the 德 in my name (same as md's).

However, was curious how it sounds to Chinese ears...I know that it's not 'the done thing' in actual Chinese names to have all good meanings, which makes me a little worried about this name...but that's life!

tb

It is a good name, white devils are blessed that they can pick anything for their Chinese name.

If it was a tie between you and moondog his name would be the tie breaker in his favour.

My name? 白佳茗. Phonetically perfect? You bet. Fitting for an Indian dude? Not really...

What does it mean?

白 - White
佳 - Beautiful or Good (with respect to goods/merchandise)
茗 - Tender Tea Leaves

Yeah my Chinese teacher in 2005 (my first foray into China - I lived in Beijing between 2006-2008 and now visit China often enough for business and fun) may or may not have tried to stifle an embarrassed giggle when she handed out our Chinese name on a card (they had been premade - with our English names underneath).

I really love China (despite how it can infuriate me) but don't think I could live there full time unless I was getting some serious coin in compensation.

great thread & 20,000 post by MD.

Since nobody wants to join me on my travels, I always seem to be alone. I use Wechat (Weixin) and Momo constantly to chitchat and make new friends. Sometimes you can meet some nice people online.

I had a Starbucks moment like that she was quite cute and fun to chat with.
My favorite China experience was taking the train from Beijing to Guangzhou earlier this year. Did the 6 person sleeper and had a great time with my fellow travelers including a mother trying to set me up with her daughter that is going to Med School here in the states. My Chinese is very limited and the mother's English wasn't very good so it created quite the interesting conversation and included lots of use of phone translators and her texting her daughter! I really enjoy China and look forward to coming back next year.
Cheers
Howie

Love this ^

Thank you for all your help and insights moondog on my questions on China, and thanks in advance for the inevitable more questions I will have in the future.

You must still be single, LOL

12 and a half years!
Congratulations on 20K.

Undoubtably your contributions eclipse all others combined.^




March 28, 02, 1:20 pm #2
moondog
FlyerTalk Evangelist; Ambassador: China

Join Date: Dec 2000
Location: Shanghai
Posts: 20,120
IMO, it's best to do as much of China on your own as possible, as organized tours are expensive, constricting, involve way too many temples and GIFT SHOPS, and the large bus dynamic renders it impossible to interact with most attractions in a relaxed/natural manner.

Going at it with limited assistance from CITS really isn't that hard. For example, you don't need their help in buying your US-China tickets (and you probably don't want to fly MU anyway). Booking your own hotels should be easy, with the help of res agents from the major chains or sites like ctrip. Once your at your hotel, you can do day trips either by cab (for close by attractions) or by minibus (for places that are further out). In both cases, your concierge should be able to help. Most can also assist you with intra-China flights and trains, for which there is no reason to book far in advance (best to be flexible). The only part of your trip for which you may require more structure, is the river cruise. Fortunately, IIRC the Lonely Planet has a pretty good section on this topics. Just my two cents. Feel free to email me if you have any questions.

Thanks for that piece of nostalgia, anacapamalibu. What struck me in reading that post (of mine) is that my approach really hasn't changed a great deal during the course of the past 12 years. Sure, we don't talk about CITS much at all any more, booking flights is easier these days, and the HSR network has come online during this time frame, but China itself is really the same beast now as it was then.

I'm somewhat surprised that I find myself coming to this conclusion because China really does change FAST (e.g. "dog years" is a common analogy). For example, Beijing completely reinvented itself cosmetically between 2001 and 2008, and Shanghai underwent a similar transformation a decade earlier. And, back then, we were rich, and the Chinese were poor; the tables have turned in a major way.

In any event, I liked China then, and I continue to appreciate it now. Being part of this community has also been a pleasure throughout.

Ten years in Shanghai

More like 25 years in Shanghai, but it's still impressive. This place changes fast.

Those puffy clouds in picture 1 are a rare, rare site these days.

Yes, more like 25 years, but 80% of the change was in 10 years.

I'm Asian and overseas Chinese, I always took speaking putonghua/guoyu/mandarin for granted. It's quite useful but of certain limitation when you hit Southern provinces with all their dialects like Hokkien, Cantonese which you can't really understand unlike the Northern dialects.