November 2, 2005

Dear Colleague,

         "What's in a name? That which we call a Rose, By any other name would smell as sweete, So Romeo would, were he not Romeo call'd, Retain that dear perfection which owes Without that title. Romeo, doffe thy name, And for thy name which is no part of thee, Take all my selfe." So Juliet desperately wanted to believe. And so did Romeo himself desperately wanted to believe. "...O tell me, friar, tell me In what vile part of this Anatomie Doth my name lodge? Tell me that I sack The hateful mansion."

         But, of course, the tragic play hinges on the complete inability of the lovers to doff their names. Name is fate. Parents, by their power to name their offspring, act as Fate. What if an English mother aspires to upper-middle-class status and so wants to name her son Vernon, because that name, to her, connotes something refined, sensitive? At school, however, a boy with the sissyish name Vernon would be teased mercilessly. Father comes to his son's rescue and comes up with the more manly Roger. Father and mother argue back and forth and arrive at the following compromise: their son will be named Roger Vernon Scruton. At home and among relatives, the boy is called Vernon, but at school he is known as Roger. Roger Scruton is a famous British conservative philosopher, friend and adviser to Margaret Thatcher, who has confessed the above in his new published autobiography, Gentle Regrets.

         I am fascinated by names perhaps because I have always felt uneasy about my own. For snobbish reasons, I like "Tuan" because that word means "Lord" (a title) in Malayan. Marshall Tuan, a warlord who was briefly president of China, adds to the prestige. Also, I recently discovered that a minor character (a good character) in Iris Murdoch's last novel, Jackson's Dilemma, is called "Tuan." He is an Englishman, so "Tuan" is a sort of playful nickname used by his friends. As for Yi-Fu, I have come to dislike it. Yi means "righteous"  and Fu means "trustful"--a bit too lofty for my taste. "Yi-Fu," however, has a story behind it. The name is father's attempt to save his sons from being teased at school. When my elder brother was born, the Zodiac demanded that he be categorized a "sheep." Mother would have none of that, so father said jokingly, "Well, what about tiger?" My elder brother was named Ta Hu (Big Tiger), and I was named Erh Hu (Second Tiger). But, of course, these names won't do at school. So, when we were ready for school, our parents used a clever subterfuge. They decided to pronounce the words Ta Hu and Erh Hu in Cantonese, my mother being Cantonese; so pronounced, the words sounded like Tai-Fu and Yi-Fu. Our parents then sought Chinese characters that gave the sounds a respectable meaning. This story understandably makes me feel a little devious.

         But let me get back to snobbery and naming. As I have said, I like "Tuan" because it hints at a noble origin, but when father sought to call me "Earl" ("Earl" sounds close to Erh, as in Erh Hu) by the time I went to an English-speaking school, I would have none of it. Why? Again the reason was snobbery. The way a Chinese is named reflects his self-confidence. Minimally self-confident, I would be known to you as Earl Duane (thus hiding my Chineseness); more confident, I am known to you as Yi-Fu Tuan, but if I am really self-confident--if I really think a lot of myself--I would insist that I be known as Tuan Yi-Fu. After all, you never say Tse-tung Mao or Kai-shek Chiang, do you?

Best wishes,

Yi-Fu