Na Li, ni ge Li Na

Ni ge (pronounced, ni ga) is not the N-word though it sounds that way. It means “your, or, you are,” but functions in discourse like the ubiquitous juvenile “like” we hear in youthful celeb interviews, or, “uh-uh” of my stuttering generation.

After the 29-year-old Sino tennis player emerged from the top berth of French Open over the weekend, press coverage could not make up its mind on what to call the new champion, prompting TennisPanoramaNews’ query: Na Li or Li Na?

The ambivalence on Na Li or Li Na at the websites of womenstennisnow.com and the WTA Players Info, for example, is indicative of a late realization that fitting the Chinese into an all-size-fits-all jacket in the calling of names no longer works. Zhongguo ren are called by their last names first, or to put it in the ways of the land of the two mighty Chang Jiang and Huang He rivers, the family name is the first name, period.

I stare at more than 200 faces every week of Chinese students at Shenyang Aerospace University, prodding them in the use of oral English, having been previously schooled in writing and reading but minimally on speaking. As has been the tradition in the past to make it easier on English teachers, each student chooses or is given an English name.

One of mine named himself “Poverty” and I asked him how he got the name. “This year, I do not have much money,” he said, “so I call myself Poverty but next year, I will have more money so I will be called Wealthy then.” Make sense.  “Down” pronounces hers “Dawn” and her friend is “Virgina,” which I tried to correct with “Virginia” but the girl insists on current one, and given the difficulty of the Chinese in pronouncing “r”, I might be forgiven the double take each time she pronounces her name.  After President Wen Jiabao announced in early March that China will send a man to the moon by 2030, one of my students named himself Neil Armstrong!

Almost to the end of the semester, I walked into class this week and executed my best 45-degree bow of humility and apology.  I was unthinking in simply acceding to the practice of frivolous if not fake English names, and thanks to many of the male students who refuse to be called but by their Chinese names, my rude awakening was not as jolting.  But it was the Western media’s insistence that ‘Li Na’ be called ‘Na Li’ that triggered the final twist. My apologies for learning my students’ English names rather than their Zhongguo ones was graciously received, and I am determined that should I return to teach another semester, I will no longer bother with the English names. “A rose is a rose by any other name” does not apply; the Chinese are proud of their family lineage.

I have Pinoy friends who were fortunate enough to have parents who named them in the Malayo-Polynesian qualities such as Liwayway (dawn), Matapang (brave), Luningning (sparkle), but my name came from the Christian tradition of branding the faithful after saints, and mine was Saint James in Spanish, but the real Castilian is Santiago, which led our inquisitive mind to the pilgrim trail of Camino de Santiago de Compostela, and in tracing the route, stumbled on the little town of Vergara (Spanish for the French Bergerac from where long-nosed Cyrano was named) up the Basque country, between Bilbao and San Sebastian. The Spanish colonizers in the Philippines took the towns of Spain and named the Indios by them, as was the Iberian practice of being identified as coming from a certain place (compared to the Anglo-Saxon practice of naming one by their line of work, like Farmer, Barber, Carpenter, etc.)

Which brings us back to Li Na. Coming on the weekend and before the Dragon Boat holiday, China celebrated the first Asian to ascend to the grand slam tennis throne, and immediately, four towns claimed bragging rights to where she is from! (BTW, “China” was the name given by the Persians to the people of the Qin and got embedded into European terminology by the Silk Road, but the Chinese never call themselves by that name. In fact, if they have a name for themselves as a people, they are the Hans, but given the 10 percent non-Han ethnic make-up, Zhongguo as the “middle realm” is more behaviorally accurate by the tradition of the yin-yang and the practices of unity in diversity. If the United States sees itself as a federation of States with dysfunctional American Indian reservations as “nations,” China sees itself as consisting of 56 nations, with some ethnic groups meriting their own functional autonomous regions, e.g., Neimonggu [Inner Mongolia] and Yanbian [Korea in China]).

Zhimu is James and Wang is the closest one can come to “V” in Vergara, so, for a while, I was Wang Zhimu, until one of the students noticed that I have pretensions at being a writer so he dubbed me, since I am listed in the SAU office as Hemi, Hemingwei! We are being playful, and with apologies to Ernest, but calling Li Na ‘Na Li’ is an affront to at least, 1.3 billion folks on the planet. PSS records have to contend with this dilemma since Qian Xinyi, Kim Nae Song, and Nakamura Keni-ichi all want to be called first by their family names. I think it is time to abandon our ethnocentric predisposition and acknowledge the right and privilege of folks to be called by the name they chose to be called.

Billie Jean King retired from competition at 32. Our lassie heading for Wimbledon is only three years short of that age in a bevy of athletes not yet 20. We wish her well to the center court. Thank you, Li Na!