Friday, October 03, 2014

Luō Màoxiāng at your service

I'm all kitted out! I'm not only in 微信 WeChat, China's FaceBook, but the business cards printed for me by the ICSCC (International Center for Studies of Chinese Civilization), have arrived. And featured there you'll see my improved and (I trust) final 中文的名字 Chinese name: The first character luō is common in foreign names (Rome, Rossini, Rorty...) as well as part of the word for arhat, but the other two are pretty obscure. But this is the fruit of an international collaboration, the mighty mào provided by a friend in New York, and xiāng, the name of a famous horse (and more recently of a famous scholar), by a new friend here. Most important, new friend tells me, is how the sounds go together - well (the last syllable sort of leaps).

We'll see where they take me! Just as I go by my first name in the US, I expect I'll mainly just be your friendly neighborhood 马克 mǎkè.