A couple in China applied to use the symbol "@" as their child's given name.
Li Yuming, of the state language commission, said the couple argued that "the whole world uses '@' to write emails" and that translated it sounded like "love him" in Mandarin. [Link]
On the Chinese version of Antiques Roadshow, sentimental value counts for nothing.
Losers go away not just disappointed that their "family heirloom" has turned out to be a dud. At the end, if a panel of experts decree it to be a forgery, the host wields a golden hammer and smashes it to smithereens.
Before the experts pass verdict, the audience gets to vote - a red, smiling face for genuine, a blue, sad one for those they would consign to the hammer. [Link]Contestants on "Collector's World" can opt out before receiving the final judgment, but have to sign a contract allowing the destruction of their item if they want to receive an appraisal.
A Chinese amusement park has erected a 30-foot structure that, the director of the China Folk Culture Association says, "symbolizes our ancestors' pursuit of happiness and prosperity." (Send the kids out of the room, lock the door, and then click here.)
This makes me wonder what kind of happiness their ancestors were pursuing. I'm confident that my ancestors were never that happy.
Ralph Lung Kee Lee came to Canada when he was 12, and paid the $500 head tax all Chinese immigrants were then required to pay. Lee finally received an apology from the Canadian government and a $20,000 redress check on March 10—his 107th birthday, and five days before he died.
"It was almost like, 'I waited this long, here I am. I'm going to stay alive to get it,"' Lee's daughter Linda Ing said of her father, who received his apology and compensation 94 years after coming to Canada.
Lee had a fun and loving personality, Ing said, and he was quite tickled when he finally received his redress cheque.
"I said, 'You're going to be 107,"' Ing recalled telling her father the day before his birthday.
"He said, 'Me?' I said, 'You,"' Ing said in mock wide-eyed amazement. "'You're going to get your cheque.' And he just laughed." [Link]
Bao Wenguang's mother found a century-old document that helped establish his descent from Genghis Khan.
The document was found in 2002 when his mother was tidying up the courtyard in the family's ancestral home, but Bao is only now making the find publicly known.
The "Bao family tree", is 6 meters long, 1.45 meters wide and together with other documents [cover] a period of more than 200 years. [Link]
DNA tests are underway to see if residents of a remote corner of China are descended from Roman soldiers. This might explain all the green eyes, big noses, and blonde hair thereabouts.
Gu Jianming, who lives near Liqian, said it had come as a surprise to be told he might be descended from a European imperial army. But then the birth of his daughter was also a surprise. Gu Meina, now six, was born with a shock of blonde hair. "We shaved it off a month after she was born but it just grew back the same colour," he said. "At school they call her 'yellow hair'. Before we were told about the Romans, we had no idea about this. We are poor and have no family temple, so we don't know about our ancestors." [Link]
A man in China has reportedly married himself.
Liu Ye, 39, from Zhuhai city, married a life sized foam cut-out of himself wearing a woman's bridal dress.
"There are many reasons for marrying myself, but mainly to express my dissatisfaction with reality," he said.
Liu says he is not gay, but admits he's "maybe a bit narcissistic", reports New Express. [Link]
From China View:
Confucius has over 3 mln descendants worldwide
JINAN, Sept. 30 (Xinhuanet) -- Confucius, a great Chinese thinker in ancient China, has more than three million descendants around the world, according to recent statistics.
[snip]
Kong Deming, vice director of the Qufu Confucius pedigree research center said that with Qufu as its main concentration region, the descendants of Confucius are now over three million, with 2.5 million on Chinese mainland, 100,000 in Republic of Korea, and many also in the United States and Malaysia and Singapore.
He also noted that the new version of Confucius family tree book will be published in 2007.
[snip]
[Read the whole story]
From The (London, U. K.) Times of Aug. 24, 2005:
Dog days over as villagers recover their lost respect
From Jane Macartney in Beijing
AFTER a thousand years, the ridicule and barking provoked by the mention of their surname finally proved too much for families from a village in central China. They won permission this month to change their name legally from Gou, a word that means "humble" but is pronounced the same as "dog".
[snip]
Police chief Guo [Junchao] defended his decision against scholars who disapproved of the name change — an unusual move in a society where tradition is to revere ancestors and to ensure the transmission of the family name. He said: "I think these people don't understand the feelings of the villagers. They would know better if their name was Gou."
[Read the whole story]
