Shaun asks her once why she goes by her English name when Ruihua doesn’t even have one.
“Because he’s the boy and is supposed to eventually carry on the family and heritage, I guess,” Katy says, shrugging, having never really thought about it that much – in her head, she is always Katy first, before she is Ruiwen, “but that obviously doesn’t stop random white dudes down at the shop going, ‘I’mma call you Ray for short’ on the rare chance they deign to speak to us.”
And if their Chinese names are going to be pushed to the sideline anyway, in Katy’s case it’s at least going to be her choice.
Ruiwen
“Which characters for rui and wen make up your name?”
This isn’t a question that anyone has ever asked Katy, not in America, anyway, but then Shaun is not ABC and the meanings behind the syllables matter to him, still.
A memory Katy previously thought long forgotten blooms in her mind. Waigong was introducing her and her brother to some friends of his, and explained their names as, “祥瑞的瑞, 十色雯华的雯华: rui as in xiangrui, and wenhua as in shise wenhua.”
Over the years, Katy has forgotten what that actually means even if she can sort of parrot the explanation still.
Apparently, she and her brother both are auspicious clouds, according to some ancient poem that Shaun cites: “Xiangrui means auspicious, lucky, and wenhua refers to multicoloured clouds that form when sunlight shine through it. Ruiwen and ruihua can both be used to refer to this cloud form which is considered good omens.”
Katy is not well-versed enough in what education is like in China to tell whether this level of knowledge is normal, even if Shaun is giving her this explanation like it is common knowledge.
“Of course, you should probably ask Waipo to confirm if that’s what it’s actually supposed to mean,” Shaun concludes.
no subject
Katy
Shaun asks her once why she goes by her English name when Ruihua doesn’t even have one.
“Because he’s the boy and is supposed to eventually carry on the family and heritage, I guess,” Katy says, shrugging, having never really thought about it that much – in her head, she is always Katy first, before she is Ruiwen, “but that obviously doesn’t stop random white dudes down at the shop going, ‘I’mma call you Ray for short’ on the rare chance they deign to speak to us.”
And if their Chinese names are going to be pushed to the sideline anyway, in Katy’s case it’s at least going to be her choice.
Ruiwen
“Which characters for rui and wen make up your name?”
This isn’t a question that anyone has ever asked Katy, not in America, anyway, but then Shaun is not ABC and the meanings behind the syllables matter to him, still.
A memory Katy previously thought long forgotten blooms in her mind. Waigong was introducing her and her brother to some friends of his, and explained their names as, “祥瑞的瑞, 十色雯华的雯华: rui as in xiangrui, and wenhua as in shise wenhua.”
Over the years, Katy has forgotten what that actually means even if she can sort of parrot the explanation still.
Apparently, she and her brother both are auspicious clouds, according to some ancient poem that Shaun cites: “Xiangrui means auspicious, lucky, and wenhua refers to multicoloured clouds that form when sunlight shine through it. Ruiwen and ruihua can both be used to refer to this cloud form which is considered good omens.”
Katy is not well-versed enough in what education is like in China to tell whether this level of knowledge is normal, even if Shaun is giving her this explanation like it is common knowledge.
“Of course, you should probably ask Waipo to confirm if that’s what it’s actually supposed to mean,” Shaun concludes.