This year for my birthday, I got something I have wanted for a long time: a secret Chinese name. For full disclosure, I'll be honest. I am about as Chinese as a plate of pyrogies and cabbage rolls, and like many round-eyes, I am ignorant of Chinese culture and custom to the point of barbarism. That did not stop me from wanting my own secret Chinese name.
As an artist, I have long been fascinated with Chinese calligraphy and their ideogrammatic expressions. Chengyu is an Asian tradition that expresses an idiom in four characters whose meanings are normally taken from ancient texts. The Chinese, however, seem to be reluctant to give out secret names on a whim. The exception that proves the rule is the guy at the shopping mall who will carve your Chinese name into a rubber stamp for seventy-five bucks, but he's just spelling out your name phonetically. I wanted a Chinese name that expresses my own particular self. And now, I've earned from begged all of my Chinese friends and acquaintances for my Chinese name, and this is it.
The name comes from not one but two chengyu, and translates to "The much-appreciated artist who is as hot as a potato", or at least so I am told. I am very inexperienced at producing Chinese calligraphy, but I hope I can rattle this off the next time someone wants me to sign an art piece. I just hope I don't end up writing "Kick me, I'm Irish!", or something equally laughable.
My deep thanks to M. Choi, who came up with this translation.
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