Another system, another world

The title of this post has to do with the title of this blog, People call me 張厚雄. Well, the fact is, they really do, and I found that strange for a while. After all, my name is Antonio... all my life I thought of Hochun (hòuxióng) as a second name no one would ever use. So at first I imagined everyone calling me by my western name, preferably with a brazilian-portuguese pronunciation, and with english pronunciation as second best.

But not only me, but everyone, and not only everyone, but everything gets a chinese name when they come to China, or when they become known by chinese. I think the only western word that is written with original western spelling in chinese texts is "OK". All others gain a chinese version.

For example, Mike becomes 麥克 (màikè). It is not supposed to have any meaning, but the characters themselves mean "wheat" and "gram".

Some conversions are very interesting:

可口可樂 (kěkǒu kělè), and 百事可樂 (bǎishì kělè). The meaning of 可(kě) alone is not very precise for me, it depends on what comes after; but roughly it means "to allow"; 口(kǒu) means mouth, and 樂(lè) means happy. 可口可樂 is the chinese name for CocaCola, and roughly means "ok for the mouth, can bring joy".

As for 百事可樂, 百(bǎi) means 100, and 事(shì) means event, or fact. 百事可樂 is PepsiCola, and means 100 happy events.

家樂福 (jiālèfú) is Carrefour. 家 means house, or family. 樂 means happy, and 福 means luck. So I guess 家樂福 is telling that at that shop they can find everything they need to have a happy home!

I guess for the same reason we have Richard and Ricardo, Michael and Miguel, chinese have 麥克... just that the difference is way bigger, to the point of becoming another world... that of the chinese writing system.

因為我生活環境的人從來沒叫我的中國名字, 所以我在中國原來覺得很奇怪, 每個人都叫我張厚雄... 不過, 在中國每個西名字都有中國名字. 不但是西名字這樣的, 而且西牌子都有中國名字, 也有一些牌子的名字有很多意思.