Mrs. Ming or Plain Ol' Cindy

There’s a lot of debate about whether or not the girl should change her name to her husband’s once they get married. It can be argued either way, change or not to change. In the Chinese culture, the girl never changes her given name (her Chinese name). If her name is Amy Chan before they are married and her husband’s surname is Lee, then she is still known as Amy Chan by friends. When she is referred to in context, then she is called the wife of Lee. This pretty much eliminates the whole messy ordeal of “does she change her name or doesn’t she?” Dear god, my ancestors thought of everything. ^_^

I found it particularly funny when I was researching wedding stuff to find a white girl who was marrying a Chinese guy trying to “asian-ify” her wedding. Because of the aforementioned statement, she’ll never use the guy’s last name, at least when writing in Chinese. They made a sign that contained his Chinese last name (written in Chinese calligraphy) with her English name and his English name. Now while this may look really pretty, it is quite the gaffe. It’d be the equivalent of getting a bad word tattooed on yourself when you really thought the word had an entirely different meaning.

Moral of the story: While giving things an Asian twist can be very “in” and it can look very pretty, you’d better double check before embarrassing yourself in front of friends and family.