Texan politician: Asians should change their names to something easier

[Ed Anger]

Where do you people find this stuff? 

I think Marti gets it from the gay.

[Caliga]

That doesn't explain La-a, pronounced "La-dash-ay".

Here I was thinking the dash was silent.

I've heard that story, but I thought it was a joke. 

[Maximus]

That doesn't explain La-a, pronounced "La-dash-ay".

Here I was thinking the dash was silent.

I've heard that story, but I thought it was a joke. 

It happened to Meri, at the school she works at.

[Caliga]

I believe I read about it here: http://www.snopes.com/racial/language/le-a.asp 

[Maximus]

My brother also ran into a real-life Lemonjello and his brother Orangejello, down in Georgia.

[garbon]

It happened to Meri, at the school she works at.

I thought it was Le-a, which is why it was first thought that the child's name was a variation of Leah.

[garbon]

Also according to the net, this is now an internet phenomena with the child being cited as from Livingston Parish, LA.

[Hansmeister]

Hmm, this is the actual quote:

BROWN: Any suggestion for us for something that would help the Chinese community, uh, that would be easier on them?
WITNESS: One suggestion off the top of my head would be some type of provision addressing the problem with names. That's actually one of the most frequently noted problems that happened in the 2008 election, which is the problem with a lot of voters having problems because their names didn't match.
BROWN: Well, rather than everyone here having to learn Chinese — I understand it's a rather difficult language –
WITNESS: Right.
BROWN: Do you think that it would behoove you and your citizens to adopt a name that we could deal with more readily here, since you're talking about –
WITNESS: Well, –
BROWN: I mean I'm not talking about changing your name, I'm talking about the transliteration or whatever you refer to it, that you could use with us.

So what is supposed to be the outrageous part?  Seems like another fake scandal cooked up by the left.

The problem is much bigger in arabic where there are usually dozens of different ways you can spell names in the latin alphabet.

[katmai]

Asian Americans can then take nice proper white surnames to clarify things. I suggest them looking for Polish, Lithuanian, former Yugoslav and Basque ones. Those should do it.

Yours doesn't count, it doesn't even sound Basque at all. Try some Urrutikoetxea, Basagoiti, Zumalakarregi, Arruabarrena, Ormaetxega or Agirretxe, for a change. 

This is true, thankfully.

[Monoriu]

Texas lawmaker: Asians should change their names to make them 'easier for Americans to deal with.'

On Tuesday, State Rep. Betty Brown (R) caused a firestorm during House testimony on voter identification legislation when she said that Asian-Americans should change their names because they're too hard to pronounce:

"Rather than everyone here having to learn Chinese — I understand it's a rather difficult language — do you think that it would behoove you and your citizens to adopt a name that we could deal with more readily here?" Brown said.

Brown later told [Organization of Chinese Americans representative Ramey] Ko: "Can't you see that this is something that would make it a lot easier for you and the people who are poll workers if you could adopt a name just for identification purposes that's easier for Americans to deal with?"

Yesterday, Brown continued to resist calls to apologize. Her spokesman said that Democrats "want this to just be about race."



http://thinkprogress.org/2009/04/09/brown-asian-names/

Actually, we already do that in Hong Kong.  The Chinese name system is just too difficult for westerners to understand.  So most of us add a Christian name to our Chinese names, and most westerners would just call us that.  E.g. the name of a typical Hong Konger would be -

[Chinese last name][Chinese first name][Chinese first name][Western name]

I do not think it is the actual pronounciation that bothers westerners, because it is quite easy in most cases.  I think very few people will have trouble pronouncing "wong", "chan", "cheung" etc.  The real difficulty lies in the fundamental differences in the naming system.  Westerners cannot comprehend that -

a) a Chinese first name often consists of more than one word
b) the notion of "middle name" does not exist in Chinese culture
c) last names always go first, and first names always go last
d) it is uncommon to address others "on a first name basis".  It is also uncommon to refer to others by their last name only.  The usual way is "last plus first name".  The reason is simple.  A study once found that 20% of Chinese (that's hundreds of millions of people) share 3 last names only.  Hundreds of millions of people are called "wong".  So if you just say "wong" it is meaningless.  You have to refer to him by his full name, e.g. Wong Tin Wai. 

[DisturbedPervert]

How do close friends address each other in Chinese?  Still the full name?

[Syt]

In retrospect, I guess this female lawmaker just had a hangup about people named Dong or Wang.

"Hi, Dong!" *snicker, blush*

[Monoriu]

How do close friends address each other in Chinese?  Still the full name?

For close friends, we use the western names too 

It just feels odd to refer to a close friend by his full Chinese name.

[Caliga]

Mono, I don't find that even remotely difficult to understand.  I have understood it since my friend Chung Gee Wai Andrew explained it to me in high school.