a day ago
- General
- South China Morning Post
What's in a Singaporean Chinese name? It's a long story
I'm a third-generation Singaporean Chinese born in the 1980s who grew up speaking
Mandarin, English and Cantonese. My parents, proudly Chinese-educated, never gave me an English name. Among friends and family, I was always Zi Qian ('he who is modest'). But as every Singaporean schoolchild knows, a Chinese name is merely raw material for nickname creativity.
For me, the memorable nicknames include Ya Qian ('Toothpick'), Zhi Qian ('Paper Thousand') and my personal favourite, Lao Qian ('Swindler'). The privilege of teasing me, of course, was reserved for those who could pronounce my name.
Many Singaporeans couldn't, so my name often became Zi Qiang ('he who is powerful') or Zi Qian in a falling tone (thereby downgrading the meaning to 'he who owes'). And as Singapore got busier globalising (read Westernising), I noticed the pronunciation gap widening – including among ethnic Chinese who didn't speak Chinese. To them, Zi Qian just didn't roll off the tongue as easily as an English name.
Sometime during my third year in law school, someone somehow decided that Zi Qian was a mouthful, and that was that. I became Chang to one group, Qian to another. By the time I entered the workforce, Zi Qian was mostly a historical footnote, and Chang had taken the lead – though on occasion, I would still be hailed from across Raffles Place in downtown Singapore by a primary school classmate with a cheerful 'Eh, Lao Qian!' ('Hey, swindler!')
Not quite the personal branding I had in mind, but at least it provided my colleagues and I with a lunchtime conversation piece.
But then I moved to the United States, where my name has turned into a 'Guess where I am from?' quiz.
