Did you know that being last sometimes means being first in China?
There are many interesting things about China and contemporary artwork is just one them. Something else that is interesting is their naming convention. While full names in China are typically made up of three characters, sometimes they are made up of just two. If you know a person well enough you might call her/him by first name, for example, Guanyu. But if the person has just two characters in her/his full name, you might use the full name, such as Chen Long. Or perhaps you would call the person xiao Long, which means “little long” (or one possible translation is “little dragon”). No one just says “long”. i.e. you don’t say to your friend “Hi Long, how are you today”.
You might have just noticed something. And, it wasn’t a mistake. Yes, Chinese people read, write and speak their surname first when giving their full name. So, a person with the full name Chen Long has a surname of Chen and a given name of Long — if his name has just two characters. If a full name is made up of three characters, such as Luo Guanyu, then the last name is Luo and the first name is Guanyu (which is actually two characters).
So, what’s the point of all this? … Click here to read the rest of this article on our website.
