| |
 |
A beautiful name
|
Wang Hua
KRISTIN, an American girl who is a little bit shy, came to teach in Shenzhen last year. Before coming here, she had studied for three weeks in Beijing University and learned to speak a few Chinese words like “ni hao”, and “xie xie”.
She liked everything related to Chinese culture: Chinese food, chopsticks and the Chinese language. She had a Chinese name “Shi Lisi” (史丽丝) given by her Chinese teacher.
Kristin showed great enthusiasm in the choice of Chinese people's names, the girls’ names, particularly, such as ‘hong(红), li(莉), ting(婷), juan(娟), mei(美)” and so on. To Kristin, these Chinese characters sounded fantastically Chinese and feminine.
A few months passed and her Chinese did not progress as the girl's shyness often robbed her of opportunities to practise spoken Chinese in front of others. What she often did was practise to herself in her room.
Then, illuminated by Crazy English, a popular way of practising spoken English among Chinese which emphasizes the loudness, clearness and quickness of speaking English, Kristin started to realize she should get rid of her shyness and do the same in Chinese if she wished to speak the language fluently.
Soon people could often find her speaking to others in Chinese as loudly, clearly and quickly as possible. Diligent as she was, she was soon to see results.
The other day I asked her how her Chinese studies were going.
In a sonorous voice, she answered: “ Pretty well. I have another Chinese name now.”
“Congratulations!” I said, “What is it?”
“Chou Mei (臭美, meaning ‘smug’ in English)！” She replied proudly, in a even louder voice.
|
|
|
|
