#51 A 7-Year-Old Mystery

    

      I have a disturbing name with good meanings. 

     I’m from Taiwan, and we speak Chinese, so of course my real name is not Jamie, but 張惇雅 (Zhang DunYa). When it’s written in English, it looks good, but in Chinese, it’s a damn difficult name. 

     It was my dad who gave me the name, and he hoped to give his kid the most special name in the world, so he opened the Chinese dictionary and found this character 惇(dun). It’s an ancient word, so it means nowadays, no one uses this character. It exists in ancient Chinese literature only. 

     So, I didn’t know how to read my own name correctly until I was 7. Everyone called me wrong. Yes, literally, “everyone.” Mostly, they called me 淳雅(ChunYa). Sometimes they called me 諄雅(ZhunYa). As you see, all of these characters look so similar. They just chose one of similar characters to call me, including my dad, the one who gave me the name. 

     On the first day of my elementary school life, I was so excited to make new friends and meet my new teacher. When my teacher came into the class, she took the board and started to call our names one by one. She was the first one who called me correctly in my life, but unfortunately, I didn’t know then. 

     “Zhang DUN-ya," she said. 

     I felt so funny because I thought my teacher called me wrong. It was the first time that I heard someone call me this way. I raised my hand and responded proudly,  

     “Sorry teacher, I’m Zhang CHUN-ya.” Other students looked at me and I thought I might look smart correcting the teacher. 

     “No, you’re Zhang DUN-ya,” she insisted. I felt so weird. I’d had this name for 7 years, how could it possible that I made such a mistake? Then she added, “Check your dictionary after school.” 

     When I got home, I told my dad the whole story, and he felt shocked as well. I looked up the character 惇(dun) in the dictionary which I got as a prize from the kindergarten, and that dictionary even didn’t have the character. Suddenly, I felt as if I was in chaos. I’d lived in the world for 7 years and the first time I doubted who I was. 

     My dad drove me to the nearest bookstore right away to find out the answer. We both felt surprised about my “new” name. I felt a little sad then because I loved my old name so much. From then on, I corrected everyone who called me wrong. Many of my friends thought that I “changed” my name. One of them even asked me why I did so. “The previous one sounds better,” she said. 

     And now, I’m already a grownup. There are still few people who know how to read my name, but I don’t mind it at all. I love my name and I appreciate that my dad gave me such a good name. It contains my dad’s hope and expectations for me. My name is 張惇雅 (Zhang DunYa). Zhang is my family name, Dun means kind-hearted, and Ya means elegant.