it has been raining a bit less lately, so i'm cautiously declaring that summer is here. finally.
colin asked me last week why hao-e's 'mii' on the wii is called "howie". long story actually. it stems from the name given by his parents within a week of his birthday (almost 30 years ago now and yes, in autocratic singapore, you're required to register all births within 7 days) - "Lim Khian Hao".
1. Family Name/Surname
In case you haven't caught on, Lim (not Hao) is the family name (meaning "forest", written form combines 2 chinese 'wood' characters - wood + wood =multiple wood =forest. ancestors could have been woodcutters, no idea.)
2. Generation Name
Khian can be called a generation name, albeit unofficial. (you won't find it in the genealogy book (zu2 pu3) in his village in China.) All his male cousins bearing the same surname (i.e. all his uncles' sons on his father's side) use Khian (spelt Kian in some instances but using the same Chinese character as the Qing Dynasty emperor Qianlong's "Qian". Note: Khian is the hokkien pronounciation of "qian"; complicated!). The exact meaning of Khian is a little difficult to describe. Ask him yourself, i'm sure he doesn't know either.
3. Given Name
And if you're not confused enough yet, Hao is his given name, meaning chilvarous/generous. A hope his mother, my mother-in-law had for her precious second-born child.
For 20+ years, he was known to everyone as "Khian Hao" or "crab" a nickname coined by Mingling, one of his "brothers" in middle and high school (i bet he wants me to mention the name of that school, but i refuse!) because he used to be in the Track & Field team of that school throwing javelin, and his movements resembled the side-way motion of crabs (the edible kind, not the disease).
For 4 years in Berkeley and Stanford, he became known as "Khian Hao Lim", putting the surname as the "last" name so that he won't be known as Mr. Hao, but Mr. Lim. There were still problems with this configuration as many mistook "Khian" as the "first" name, and "Hao" as the middle name. So correspondence were often addressed to "Khian Lim" or "Khian H. Lim" which ain't 100% correct, if you get my drift. To make it easier for those who didn't always know how to pronounce the "kh" in "khian", he was sometimes called "hao". And that's how Howie/Hao-e was coined, from the name given by my mother-in-law that identifies him from the many cousins called "Lim Khian ___".
When he got baptised into the Catholic faith in 2006, he took the name "Matthew" and became known as Matt Lim or sometimes as Matt Speaking because that's how he answers his phone now. "Hello, Matt Speaking" and my usual reply is "Mr. Speaking, can we go home now?"
colin asked me last week why hao-e's 'mii' on the wii is called "howie". long story actually. it stems from the name given by his parents within a week of his birthday (almost 30 years ago now and yes, in autocratic singapore, you're required to register all births within 7 days) - "Lim Khian Hao".
1. Family Name/Surname
In case you haven't caught on, Lim (not Hao) is the family name (meaning "forest", written form combines 2 chinese 'wood' characters - wood + wood =multiple wood =forest. ancestors could have been woodcutters, no idea.)
2. Generation Name
Khian can be called a generation name, albeit unofficial. (you won't find it in the genealogy book (zu2 pu3) in his village in China.) All his male cousins bearing the same surname (i.e. all his uncles' sons on his father's side) use Khian (spelt Kian in some instances but using the same Chinese character as the Qing Dynasty emperor Qianlong's "Qian". Note: Khian is the hokkien pronounciation of "qian"; complicated!). The exact meaning of Khian is a little difficult to describe. Ask him yourself, i'm sure he doesn't know either.
3. Given Name
And if you're not confused enough yet, Hao is his given name, meaning chilvarous/generous. A hope his mother, my mother-in-law had for her precious second-born child.
For 20+ years, he was known to everyone as "Khian Hao" or "crab" a nickname coined by Mingling, one of his "brothers" in middle and high school (i bet he wants me to mention the name of that school, but i refuse!) because he used to be in the Track & Field team of that school throwing javelin, and his movements resembled the side-way motion of crabs (the edible kind, not the disease).
For 4 years in Berkeley and Stanford, he became known as "Khian Hao Lim", putting the surname as the "last" name so that he won't be known as Mr. Hao, but Mr. Lim. There were still problems with this configuration as many mistook "Khian" as the "first" name, and "Hao" as the middle name. So correspondence were often addressed to "Khian Lim" or "Khian H. Lim" which ain't 100% correct, if you get my drift. To make it easier for those who didn't always know how to pronounce the "kh" in "khian", he was sometimes called "hao". And that's how Howie/Hao-e was coined, from the name given by my mother-in-law that identifies him from the many cousins called "Lim Khian ___".
When he got baptised into the Catholic faith in 2006, he took the name "Matthew" and became known as Matt Lim or sometimes as Matt Speaking because that's how he answers his phone now. "Hello, Matt Speaking" and my usual reply is "Mr. Speaking, can we go home now?"
Comments