Chinese Names- 22nd Oct

Thank God for this thing called Chinese names. Despite the general disdain by the younger Chinese generation for this practice, I do feel very much that it is this element that gives me, or, a Chinese an identity. In the midst of nearly the entire Singaporean population having English or Christian names, it feels warm to call someone by his or her Chinese characters. Face it. There are certain names which would make one feel terribly embarassed for the person or to even be associated with the person in name, Names like Raffles, Faith, Alien *i swear by this. Go read the latest TIME mag* have been mushrooming throughout the island. Ugh. For the record, the name Raffles, given i presume after Sir Stamford Raffles, the founder of modern Singapore, is the great man's surname. And there are ignorant ones who have their names "Raffles Tan" emboldened in gold, on their namecards. This mistake is enough to make one cringe. In the small little island of Singapore which is predominantly Chinese, if we were to have only English/Chritian names in front of our surnames, it would be pretty hard to distinguish one from another. The Caucasians have it pretty easy as they have unique surnames *need I mention any?* from each other. At school, teachers call everyone by their surnames rather than their English names. Make sense, doesnt it? At last count, there are 234000 "Tan"s in Singapore, followed by the "Lim"s (162400) and the "Lee"s tying for 2nd place. Imagine the trouble a registering officer would have as he found himself face with 10 different ladies who each respond to "Jessica Tan". * hey, It's a small world, considering the statistics.* No sense of identity dont you think? I admit I do have an English name but I don't go by it. I don't specifically ask my lecturers or tutors to call me by my English name. As sadist as I would seem, it does give me pleasure in hearing them pronounce my unique chinese characters/ roman letters and then smugly telling them that they have pronounced it the WRONG way. The English name was an act of folly- i christened myself that way as it was a phase i went through. *back then, my cousins and I were racking our brains to come up with names for ourself and I refused to be stuck with plain ol' boring Sharon*  So its stuck there now as a matter of conveniece for those of my friends who cannot pronounce my Chinese name. But, I am truly grateful to my parents for giving me my unique chinese name (despite its manly tone) and ironically, I have never complained about the number of lines I had to draw to make my Chinese name make sense. Our Malay and Indian friends easily identity themselves with their different names. If the Chinese continue to immerse themselves without thinking in the light of the Western inflitration, not knowing how to strike a good balance between the two, one day, we might end up hearing a frantic mother calling her sons "Pioneer Tan" or "Kenwood Tay" to not get lost amongst the aisles in the megamart. Kai 2000