The Hopeless Dream of Being

傅 德 曼
fù dé màn

This is my Chinese name. In China, you say family name followed by the given name. Therefore, my surname is Fu, and my first name would be Deman. This "de" means virtue, and this "man" means graceful, though my dad thinks it looks like a director's chair. The marks on the top of the words are tone markings, indicating how the voice should rise or fall with each word. There are five tones in Mandarin, and they are VERY important. Having bad intonation is like... well, there's really no English equivalent. I don't really want to give a long Chinese lesson, since that would bore most of you.

I had another Chinese name before this. It was given to me by my totally awesome professor in the first week I started Chinese. I decided to change it before I go abroad, because I wanted something more personal. I love my professor, and it's not like I didn't like my name, but I just didn't feel that it fit me.

So I contacted my (Chinese) friend's parents, Mr. Zhang and Mrs. Shuai. These are two of the most wonderful people ever. I love them so. Mrs. Shuai cooks the best tofu I have ever eaten, and both have them have always been so wonderful to me. So, though I think they were surprised and slightly confused to hear from me, they created a Chinese name for me.

Giving children names in China is a very long, complicated process. Most parents don't give their children names until a few weeks after their birth, and first names in China are much more personalized and numerous than in the US. So it was no small task for Mrs. Shuai to come up with a name. In the end, she chose names that sounded like my American one. The above name sounds like my complete American last name. It's a good name. I like it.

I think it's interesting that in China, people will know me by a totally different name. It's like I'll be another person, like I get a fresh start. At the risk of sounding flowery and overly prosaic, it will be like a second birth. I intend to experience this semester totally open to change and to changing. I think it will be hard to leave my American self behind. When I was in Shanghai last June, I was with some of my college friends, so resisting change was much easier than yielding to it. This time, I don't know anyone. At my core, I will still be the same person, I think. But isn't it exciting to split in half? It's rather like Ingmar Bergman's "Persona," a quotation from which is the title of this entry.

There will always be a part of me that exists only in China. Likewise, there's a part of me that exists only in the US. But I've lived my entire life with my US-self, and it's exciting and terrifying to think that as I go to China, I'm leaving part of myself behind, and I don't know if she will be here when I get back.