In China I often meet young people who introduce themselves by their English name, rather than their Chinese name. The difficulty a foreigner might have in pronouncing their real name, is, I guess, the main reason for this. Another reason, I suspect, is that an English name gives an air of importance. It’s like a fashionable outfit of a well-known label, an accessory contributing to the image they want to project. The names that are chosen vary from conventional names such as Anna, Phoebe, and Andrew to stranger choices like Bottle, Radio and Wing. What determines these choices? I’m not sure. Sometimes it’s loosely related to the phonetics of their Chinese name. I imagine that it can refer to the meaning of their proper name. (Chinese names often consist of characters that translate into terms like: beautiful flower, or brave warrior). But how does one come about choosing Radio as a name?

Just as some Chinese use English names, many foreigners in China are given Chinese names. This must have to do with unpronouncable consonants, and alien syllables. In my case, I was given the name li ye (part of ga-bi-li-ye) by my first Chinese language teacher back in 2005. Various characters could have been chosen to represent these two sounds, happily my teacher chose characters that have a meaning that suit me and my trade well:

丽;  [lì]  -> beautiful
叶;  [yè]  -> leaf or page
Not bad for a graphic designer.

Initially this name meant little else to me other then that it made introducing myself to Chinese speakers easier. Now, after almost 4 months of living and teaching in Guangzhou, I have grown affectionate towards it. When my name is called, which happens during teaching alot, my ears are attuned to the sound: leee-yeah.

li ye is the name I’ve been responding to the most these past months, and it feels liberating, as if it reveals to a part of my personality that I’ve been repressing. Is li ye the same person as Gabrielle?