User Comments - changye
changye
Posted on: The Surname Code
November 27, 2008 at 6:36 AMHi helandou,
I think "鲁迅的鲁" is much better than "鲁班的鲁"！
Posted on: The Surname Code
November 27, 2008 at 6:21 AMHi guys,
Here is an explanation about “百家姓” in the picture from Wikipedia. Please be noted that the “百” connotes “many”, but doesn’t mean “hundred.” The Chinese word “百姓” (common people) is originated in the concept of “百家姓”, or the other way around, haha.
The Hundred Family Surnames (Chinese: 百家姓; pinyin: Bǎijiāxìng) is a classic Chinese text composed of common surnames in ancient China. The book was composed in the early Song Dynasty.
It originally contained 411 surnames, but was later expanded to 504. Of these, 444 are single-character surnames, and 60 are double-character surnames. About 800 names have been derived from the original ones.
The work is a rhyming poem in lines of eight characters. The surnames are not listed in order of popularity. The first four surnames listed are believed to derive from the most important families in the empire at the time.
You can see all the surnames in 百家姓 with its recitation on the webpage below. Please click on the link!
Posted on: The Surname Code
November 27, 2008 at 5:49 AMHi dldshanghai,
Thanks a lot for precious information. I will try to look into the etymologies of those sounds.......someday.
There is the city called "沈阳" (shen3 yang1) in northeast China, but the character is pronounced "chen2" when it's used as a family name.
Interestingly, the Korean pronunciation of "朴", a surname, is "pak", and this is based not on the Chinese sound "piao", but on "po", of which ancient pronunciation was "puk". "朴" has four readings, namely "piao2", "pu3", "po1" and "po4"......wow.
Posted on: The Surname Code
November 27, 2008 at 4:42 AMHi hwangd01,
P/S. I forgot to tell you an interesting episode. Some of the people who had the name "王" chose "金" as their new family name because the character "金" includes "王" in it, which I guess consequently made "金" the most popular name in Korea.
Posted on: The Surname Code
November 27, 2008 at 4:03 AMHi hwangd01,
There are plausible reasons why there are so many "金, 李, 朴" in Korea. Firstly, the kings of 朝鲜王朝 had the surname "李". Secondly, the kings of 统一新罗 had the name "金", and thirdly the first king of 新罗 was Mr. 朴.
Interestingly, the number of people with the name "王" is very small in Korea despite the fact that it was the surname of the kings of 高丽. I guess that 王 （= king） was not so appropriate for ordinary people's name, haha.
Furthermore, I also hear that a lot of people abandoned the name "王" and chose other family names when 高丽 was brought down by 朝鲜王朝, which was a way to escape from the new regime's oppression.
Posted on: The Surname Code
November 27, 2008 at 3:02 AMHi hwangd01,
According to the survey findings in 1930 (it's rather obsolete but I think it's still effective), your surname "黄" is ranked sixteenth (not so bad!) in the top 250 surnames in Korea. And there is no surname "荒" in the list, unfortunately.
FYI, top ten names are as follows, 金、李、朴、崔、鄭、姜、趙、尹、張、林. That said, I hear that the number of people who have top three names "金、李、朴" account for more than 40% in Korea. In this sense, "黄" is actually not a common Korean name.
Posted on: Do you have a cold?
November 27, 2008 at 12:16 AMHi david0000,
I don't know the situation in other regions, but as far as I know, 伤风 is used in conversation here in northeast China.
Posted on: Do you have a cold?
November 26, 2008 at 12:25 PMThere are a few Chinese words that mean "get a cold." Of course, 感冒 is the most common word among the three.
感冒 (gan3 mao4)
着凉 (zhao2 liang2)
伤风 (shang1 feng1)
Posted on: Get in line!
November 26, 2008 at 9:00 AMIt’s Queuing Day in Beijing on the 11th day of every month. Please click on the link to read a half-bitter half-humorous news article about the first Queuing Day on January 11, 2007.
Make a long story short, some people didn’t line up when they get give away gifts at the “queuing” event site on that day. As far as I’ve seen, things are gradually improving in China.
北京首个排队日 市民领奖未排队
http://gb1.cri.cn/9523/2007/02/12/421@1451282.htm
http://news.sina.com.cn/c/2007-01-18/173012074196.shtml
Posted on: The Surname Code
November 27, 2008 at 9:26 AMHi John,
If you are too modest to call yourself "潘安", there is another option for you, 我是联合国秘书长 (U.N. Secretary-General) 潘基文的潘, although I don't know which is more famous in China, 潘安 or 潘基文, haha. Incidentally, my boss didn't know either of them.