Good Characters, Inc. Blog

NBC Nightly News has a video (Selling China on human rights) about Dui Hua Executive Director John Kamm, a successful business person turned human rights activist for Chinese political and religious prisoners. Kamm uses persistence and his acquired business skills to advocate for human rights.

John Kamm’s Chinese name is 康原 (Kang Yuan). Kang is a Chinese surname meaning health or to be healthy. It sounds like the English pronunciation of his last name, Kamm. Yuan means original It doesn’t sound like John. We’d like to ask him one day how he decided on his Chinese name and what inspired him to pick this name.

According to the report, his approach to negotiating with Chinese officials can be summarized in two steps:

1. Kamm first researches Chinese court documents to discover and identify prisoners who are in the system.
    
2. Subsequently, using a business approach to human rights, Kamm makes a request to the Chinese officials, trying to convince them that they are better off releasing the prisoners. He is persistent and sees the release as yet another sale he needs to close.

He understands that he gets better results when he informs the government officials of the benefits to them of releasing prisoners than when he uses threats. Unlike other human rights activists, Kamm tries to stay low key, working quietly rather than embarrassing the officials.

Kamm is well admired, not only because of his accomplishments as a successful business man, his past service as president of the American Chamber of Commerce in China, and his role as a successful corporate vice president.  He is well respected and liked among the Chinese because his intentions seem to be genuine and sincere. He helps those who cannot help themselves and cannot give him anything in return. His actions have freed 450 political and religious prisoners to date; most of them he says he’s never met.

We can all learn something from this report.

Links:

• Selling China on Human Rights
  “Making a Difference” Series on NBC Nightly News Features Dui Hua Executive Director John Kamm. Dec. 28: How an American man leveraged his big business connections to free hundreds of China’s religious and political prisoners.
• Making A Difference
  Making a difference Friday, December 28, 2007
• John Kamm’s Chinese Name is Kang Yuan
  斯坦福大学名誉教授 John Kamm (康原) 来我院演讲. John Kamm 的中文名字叫康原.
• Human Rights Award Recipient John Kamm
  美国之音焦点透视主持人康原获人权奖
• The Dui Hua Foundation Home Page
  The Dui Hua Foundation (”dui hua” means “dialogue” in Mandarin Chinese) is a non-profit organization dedicated to improving universal human rights by means of a well-informed dialogue between the United States and China.

New statistics from China: 

• More than 85 percent of China’s 1.3 billion people use 3-character names.
• More than 160 million people have 2-character names.
• About 2 million people have names of more than 4 characters.
• The longest name found among Han Chinese reaches 15 characters.
• Nearly 1,000 people have names with 10 or more characters.
• Although they attempt to limit Han Chinese names to 6 characters, regulations allow ethnic minorities to use longer names in their native languages and transliterations in Chinese. The latter are required for formal documents.

Links:

• Name game: most Chinese use 3 characters, some use 10 or more
• National Citizen Identity Information Center (NCIIC) (Chinese)
• The longest name found among Han Chinese reaches 15 characters (Chinese)
  漢族公民最長姓名十五個字

In western society a name can be used freely and even trivially. One can grant a name to just about anything with no worries, while in Sudan a teacher who named a teddy bear Mohammed is now being prosecuted by the Sudanese government and is facing harsh punishment. This incident has caused great controversy and has shocked this side of the globe. Americans may deem Sudan’s attitude towards the teddy bear incident as extreme and irrational, but one must also take in to account that there are many existing cultures that believe there is a great significance behind a name. 

Hundreds of years ago in China names were not to be used trivially. Just recently, I was going over my family tree and realized that my family name was linked to one of ancient China’s emperor. In the record of my family line, at some point in time one of the Chuang’s was an artist to the emperor who carried the same name. Out of respect for the emperor his name had to be changed. Historically in China, your whole family could be killed if the name was already that of a royal figure. In western society a name could be taken for granted, but in China as well as in other countries, a name must be taken very seriously.

News Links:

• The “Teddy Teacher” Incident… More Than Muslims Can Bear
• The Blasphemous Teddy Bear

Cameron Diaz made a good name for herself in Japan, Taiwan, and China when she visited to promote the movie “Shrek the Third” in May. A month later she, however, made a bad name for herself in Peru and had to apologize because the Communist Chinese military-style bag she wore evoked hurtful memories among Peruvian locals.

The bag had a large red star in the center with some Chinese characters beneath it. She now knows the red star is linked with the communist party and that those characters represented Chairman Mao’s claim “Serve the People.” 

This type of mistake is rather common among trendy Westerners nowadays, given the popularity of communist memorabilia as a fashion statement. For people who suffered at the hands of communists, such symbols are not cool, but rather painful reminders of the past.

When you travel to Taiwan, Hong Kong, or China for business, avoid wearing, carrying, or having anything associated with political symbols or slogans. What may seem cool to you could be offensive to the locals. Politics are usually too sensitive and too complex for outsiders to understand. 

By the way, we couldn’t help noticing that Cameron Diaz doesn’t have an official Chinese name. A quick online search reveals her name has been transliterated at least 7 different ways:

• 卡麥蓉狄亞玆
• 卡麥蓉迪亞
• 卡梅隆迪婭茲
• 卡梅伦迪亚兹
• 卡梅隆迪亚茨
• 卡梅伦迪亚斯
• 金美侖戴雅絲

Imagine having 7 different names!

Link:

• Cameron Diaz on Japanese TV Show Eating A Shrek Sushi (YouTube)

The Chinese press is always happy when foreigners, particularly Americans, take notice of events in China. Andy Chuang keeps up on what is going on in China, and that got him noticed in the news.

The event was a simple contest put on by the city of Jinan. City officials invited the public to suggest names for 19 of its streets. Since Andy is in the business of naming, he entered the contest, submitting a few ideas for names. The city must not have expected entries to come from as far as the U.S. because Andy’s submissions appeared in no less than 12 news Web sites in China!

Whether any of his names will be one of the winners remains to be seen. When the contest closed, Jinan had 500 names to choose from!

Links:

• Street-naming Contest (Chinese)
  我给无名路起名活动结束 共征集路名500多条
• Street Naming Contest Has Received Suggestions from as Far Away as America (Chinese)
  征集名称已达400个，海外游子送来芳名, 无名路征名备受关注:
  远在美国的庄志鸿先生，通过网络得知泉城济南为无名路征名的消息后，他与身边亲朋好友一起集思广益，为这19条无名路分别起了名字。
• Street Naming Contest Ended with 500 Name Candidates (Chinese)
  征集名称500条 我给无名路起名 活动圆满结束:
  另外，本次征名活动也受到海外的关注，远在美国的庄志鸿先生，通过网络得知泉城济南为无名路征名的消息后，他与身边亲朋好友一起集思广益，为这19条无名路分别起了名字邮寄过来，并表达了要到泉城一游的愿望。
• Nineteen Unnamed Streets Are Waiting for You to Name (Chinese)
  19条无名路等你起名
• Help Us Name Nineteen Unnamed Streets (Chinese)
  19条无名道路请您起名
• Jinan: Naming Streets is Not an Easy Task (Chinese)
  济南： 老街巷消失 新街名何以信达雅

In China, where there are a billion people, even if you’re one-in-a-million, there are still a thousand just like you. That’s the case with some popular names. Parents in China are limited in their choices of names for their children. The results are that . . .

• 3,937 people in Shanghai have the name Chen Jie.
• almost 900,000 people in Shanghai have the surname Zhang, and
• 3,751 of them have the name Zhang Min.
• Over 1.5 million people in Beijing have the surname Wang.

Although China has more than 700 family names, most people use one of the 20 most popular. The proliferation of identical names is causing problems in banks, schools, and elsewhere. In China at least, being one in a million is just not very unique.

Links:

• Shanghai Muddle over Popular Name
• Shanghai Muddle over Popular Name (Chinese)
  上海人口張姓最多, 叫陳潔的 3937 人

What is the price of not having properly translated Chinese names? For the city of San Francisco, the answer is “More than $25,000.”

The problem arose just prior to an election when seven candidates for local offices found their translated names absent from the Chinese-language voting materials. Even though the English names were on the voter handbook and absentee ballot, Supervisor Mabel Teng complained that not having her name translated into the language of the voter was the same as not having it on the ballot at all. The federal Voting Rights Act as well as state law requires that precincts provide voting materials in languages other than English if a sufficient number of voters need them.

The omission cost San Francisco about $19,000 for printing and mailing of new materials for the 3,000 voters who requested Chinese-language election materials and up to $7,500 for running ads in Chinese-language newspapers to inform voters. It could have cost $105,000 to $310,000 if all the voter handbooks and absentee ballots had to be reprinted and resent.

The whole mess could have been avoided. If every public figure whose name might appear in a Chinese-language publication had an official translation of his or her name, that name would be readily available. It would be handy when a reporter calls or when filling out an application to run for public office.

Link:

• Ballot Brouhaha–A Federal Case?
  Campaigns, city compromise on corrections, but debate over omitted Chinese names continues

We know what the name of the new prince of Japan means, but where did it come from? Hisahito means “everlasting, calm, and virtuous,” but how did Prince Akishino and Princess Kiko arrive at that name? We know they consulted experts in classic Chinese and Japanese literature. Does any of that literature suggest a name such as Hisahito?
 
Some think the first character is inspired by a line from the writings of the famous Chinese poet Tao Yuanming. (The final character, “hito,” is customarily included in the name of a male of the royal family.) The line is “you ran jian nan shan,” and it means “I gaze at the distant South Mountain.” The character “you” is pronounced hisa in Japanese. 
 
The new prince’s father has said that the name was chosen in hopes that Hisahito would have a long life. The South Mountain of Tao Yuanming’s poem is a symbol of long life in the Chinese culture. The word that describes the mountain as distant is “you,” the one pronounced hisa. It can also mean “everlasting.”
 
So the name has good meaning, expresses the wishes of the child’s parents, is new and unique, is rooted in ancient writings, and has poetic imagery. No wonder naming experts had to be consulted!

Links:

• The Name of Japanese Prince Hisahito Is Inspired by a Chinese Poem (Chinese)
  日本小皇子名悠仁, 取自中國詩人陶淵明詩句
• The Elaborate Process of Naming for Japanese Royal Family Includes Researching Chinese Classics (Chinese)
  日本皇室添丁讲究多： 起名参照中国古书籍
• Imperial Household of Japan
• Tao Yuanming

King Solomon said, “A good name is more desirable than great riches” (Proverbs 22:1). In the city of Shanghai, some parents are spending great riches to get a good name for their children. A number of personal naming companies are promising to come up with names that will insure a future of wealth and social standing. The price? Up to RMB $800 ($100 U.S.) per character. Since most given names consist of one or two characters, a good name could cost as much as $200 U.S.
 
Shanghai officials claim the companies that assign the names are not properly licensed. They say the businesses are consulting or information services, and as such they cannot legally offer naming advice. But a number of Shanghai residents don’t seem to care about the license. After all, $200 seems a small price to pay for a name that promises fame and prosperity.

Links:

• Personal Naming Agencies Rake in the Money, But Are They Properly Licensed? (Chinese)
  起名社竟然月入数万元, 工商表示涉嫌违规经营
• RMB $800 Per Character for A Name That Promises Fame and Prosperity (Chinese)
  富贵每字要花800 起名社竟然月入数万元

A recent Chinese blog entry titled “Top 10 Most Popular Chinese Names” has created quite a stir, making it one of the most read in a week in September. According to this private, unscientific study, 1.3 million of China’s 1.3 billion people have the name Liu Bo. Forty percent of the entire population has one of the 10 most popular surnames.

One reason for the many identical names is the availability of computer programs that generate “lucky” names. These programs use Chinese fortune telling methods that were refined and made popular in Japan. They calculate birth date and time and the numbers of strokes in certain characters and spit out “good” names. The result is that a lot of people have the same names.

In a country with an estimated 20 million newborn per year, the search for a unique name is only going to get more difficult, not easier.

Smelling this potentially profitable trend, the first annual Chinese Personal and Brand Naming Strategy Conference is going to be held at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing Oct. 21-23, 2006. Sponsored by the Chinese Personal Name and Culture Research Group, the 3-day conference offers hotel room, meals, and inclusion in its Directory of Chinese Naming Experts for RMB $1580 ($200 US).

What kinds of strategies will the naming “experts” who will be attending this conference talk about? Most of the participants claim they are scientists schooled in the I-Ching method of naming. How scientific is this method?

The I-Ching, an ancient classic also called Book of Changes, was used for centuries in fortune telling. In Communist China, fortune telling, equivalent to superstition, was forbidden. In fact, everything “traditional” was frowned upon. But now, Chinese rulers are cultivating nationalistic passions to stay in power, so “Chinese tradition” is back. So, in the name of “preserving the culture and tradition of naming,” the use of I-Ching is now permitted. Fortune telling is no longer “superstition”; now it is “culture.”

Links:

• Top 10 Most Popular Names in China (Chinese)
  中国十大最俗名字
• Chinese Personal Name and Culture Research Group (Chinese)
  中国姓名文化研究会