I read an essay in the Washington Post about a Chinese American journalist who reclaimed her Chinese name as a part of her whole identity. She talked about being embarrassed by her Chinese name, having to explain it, hearing it mispronounced all the time and the ways she’s come to embrace it in the wake of anti-Asian violence in the past few years. Chinese names, or origin names, are also something I’ve been thinking about as well, especially in the recent wake of “reclaiming” identity. I’ve written before how I felt like a fake in the ways I take pride in my heritage, as if I’m doing it incorrectly. A part of that struggle includes my Chinese name; how I don’t really have one to claim.
The journalist quotes the scene in Shang Chi when the father, Wen Wu, tells Awkwafina’s character that names are important because “they connect us to what came before.” In the movie’s case, giving a name to a character humanized him as a person because Wen Wu never had a name. The online magazine Inverse did a series explaining the historical roots of Shang Chi and the Mandarin, explaining how they spent time creating a character out of the racist origins of the Mandarin. Starting with giving him a name, to create an identity, a personhood from nothing. So when I watched the movie I thought more about the writer’s intentions than the importance of a Chinese name as a connection to family. But the conversation speaks to both truths.
My Chinese name is 国艳艳 and right off the bat, most Chinese readers can tell I’m adopted. While Guo, G-U-O, is a common enough Anglicized spelling of a Chinese last name, the character 国 itself just means land, country, nation-state, China. It’s a stand-in last name, a formality for some paperwork. By no means would anyone call it my “family” name because 国 can hardly be traced back to any family. The first part, Yanyan 艳艳, means gorgeous, beautiful, gaudy, and bright (according to the well-known Chinese dictionary app Pleco.) I have no idea where the name came from, who gave it to me, or which definition they meant for me. The fact that it’s repeated suggests it was just a cute nickname for a baby. That’s the name on all of my Chinese paperwork, and that’s all I’m ever going to get.
I don’t put 国艳艳 in my social media bios because no one ever calls me that. When I say I’ve reclaimed my Chinese name, I really mean that I’m reclaiming an entire heritage that was taken from me and learning a culture I was never a part of.
I have reclaimed 国艳艳 and call it my Chinese name. It’s the Chinese name given to me, and at some point, someone called me it. If anyone asks I tell them 国 is a common name for China and 艳艳 means “colorful” (because that’s my favorite Shinee song.) For my twenty-fourth birthday, I got it tattooed on my wrist because I never learned how to write it and always wanted the reminder. I don’t know a single thing about my birth, my biological parents, any family, or any real connection to China. And yet my name connects me to all that came before. The ambiguity of my name, my past, is the history of China itself; the culture, the policies, the people that created the circumstances that left me, as a baby, at a bus stop in rural Southern China. Like Wen Wu, someone—anyone—had to give me a name to make me a person. And now that name is Lily Rugo.
To learn more about Lily, check out her website: http://lilyrugo.com/