My name is... 我叫做。。。 part 1

Who am I? To inquire at the most basic level of identification, what is my name? When it comes to my name(s), there is a bit of confusion - even on my part over the years. Yes, I have been puzzled by my very own name! Others may ponder the proverbial question of who they are in relation to the grand scheme of things i.e. the universe, but up until a few years ago, I couldn't even get past my own name.

The reasoning for this confusion has to do with the variety of dialects found in China and their respective pronunciations for the same characters. Well, they are considered "dialects," but differences in pronunciation may push some people to classify them as "languages."

As it stands, Cantonese and Mandarin are dialects of the Chinese language. Spanish and Italian are classified as separate languages altogether even though they sound very similar and are actually partially intelligible to speakers of each opposing language in question.

Actually, Cantonese is a sub-regional dialect that is part of the greater "Yue" (粵） dialect of the Chinese language which is comprised of Cantonese a.k.a. Guang Dong Hua (廣東話）and Tai Shan Hua (台山話）。

I can still recall a story from my old Chinese language teacher about an experiment that he did to determine once and for all if Tai Shan Hua and Guang Dong Hua (Cantonese) were the same. Apparently, he believed that they were the same dialect since they sounded so similar to him. He, of course, only knew one dialect of Chinese - Mandarin.

The experiment went as follows: What he did was he had one person who only knew how to speak Tai Shan Hua and one person who only knew Cantonese attempt a conversation using their native tongues to see if communication occurs and at what level of comprehension on each of their parts. The results proved him wrong. Each participant in the experiment wasn't able to make out what the other was saying at all. In other words, what came out of one person's mouth was unintelligible to the other.

This will serve to give one an idea of the differences between mere "dialects" in the Chinese language. Hm.. this is not even at the the dialectal level for disparity; such variety can be seen even in sub-regional dialects since both Tai Shan Hua and Cantonese are grouped under the Yue dialect.

With the above stated, I can go on to the topic at hand - my name. For all legal purposes, my name is (using American naming conventions and Mandarin pinyin) is Xin Qia Mei (新洽梅 - actually 梅新洽 using Chinese naming conventions). For familial matters, I am known as 梅尚洪 - Mei Shang Hong. Mei is the surname and the others are the given names.

For the sake of good taste in length and my Chinese studies, I will end this entry here and continue to explain my names, confusion in pronunciation and the various names that came about because of said confusion in my next entry using Chinese.