What's in a name

A few days ago I was reminded of an old movie that I knew of but had never watched, by reading about it at Walk in Wisdom, in a post titled Thinking of one and many. Aunt Melanie writes,

There is an old movie, The Inn of the Sixth Happiness, which illustrates how one person—through faith and acceptance of life’s challenges—can have a positive impact on many people. This movie is based on the life of the British evangelical missionary, Gladys Aylward… who went to mainland China in 1930 and remained there for 20 years. The movie, made in 1958 and filmed in Wales, is not totally accurate to Aylward’s life and work. Aylward, who died in 1970, was very disturbed by the Hollywood version of her mission. For today’s posting, however, I will discuss the movie in itself and try not to refer to the real person. In the movie, the Chinese villagers gave Aylward the name Jennai [人爱], meaning the one who loves the people…

Aunt Melanie's post made me remember things I'd not thought of in years, from my earliest childhood till now, and everything in between. And so, I began to reminisce.

I am an orientalist, and it runs in my family, probably because Polish people, like Russians, are attracted to the Orient and to strange cultures. Like my grandparents, I have a house full of unusual, strange stuff from all over, but particularly from East Asia. Well, there's more to my connexion with China, Japan and the Far East than just ‘stuff.’

My burden for China, and later, for Japan, was with me since I was a three year old child, and I am still wondering, fifty-seven years later, what is the purpose of it?

When I was three years old, I remember laying out a large National Geographic map on the floor of our sunny living room, and studying it. I think it was a map of only North America. My eyes kept getting drawn into the large pink area of the map, and I tried to sound out the country name. I was just then learning how to read. ‘C… Ch… Chi…nah… Mommy, does this say China?’

‘No, Normie, that spells 'Ca…na…duh…', that's Canada,’ replied my mom. ‘Mommy, I want to go and live there when I grow up!’ I piped up emphatically.

Hmm, well, that is a strange prophecy! As a 21 year old young single man just out of college, I did, in fact, wave goodbye to my mommy one morning and drive away to Canada, never to return—except to return a few months later with my future wife, to show her to my mom and ask her permission, so that I could ask her to marry me when we got back.

‘My, what a pretty Indian princess!’ my mom said to me privately in the car, looking on as my girlfriend walked off to use the ladies’ room at a rest stop. To mom, anyone with dark hair and olive skin who lived beyond the Mississippi River must be an Indian. We brought mom and my little sister back with us to Alberta, where they tried living with us in our commune.

Mom was always unconventional, and the hippie movement intrigued her, everyone living together, sharing everything, pooling resources, ‘from each according to ability, to each according to need.’ After a few weeks, we sent them back on an airplane to Illinois. Commune living wasn’t, for them, what it was cracked up to be.

I did leave home and immigrate to Canada, that ‘big pink’ area on the map, but it was not Canada, but China, that I really wanted to reach. The whole range of my life from childhood through adulthood has been colored by my love for Asian history, art, and cultures. Now, a whole lifetime later, is the door finally opening for me? Is it for a last look at what I wanted but never could achieve? or is it opening because it’s about to open wider, and I will finally be granted my desire?

Names. I’ve toyed with the idea before of having a Chinese name, and after I went to Japan the first time, of having a Japanese name as well, and why not? I have a Greek name, Romanós, a Slavic name, Román, a Hebrew name, Ari Shim’on, why not a Chinese name, or a Japanese one?

Translating my family name into Asian was easy. Górny (pronounced in Polish, GOOR-neh) means the same thing as the Chinese Gao 高 (Gow), and even starts with the same letter. As a first name, I liked Ningrui 宁瑞 (Ning-ZHWAY) because it starts with an N as does my English name, Norman. Gao Ningrui 高宁瑞. I liked that.

For my Japanese name, you use the same character, but in Japanese that kanji is read as Taka 高. But Japanese family names need two syllables, so I added Yama 山, which also has the same meaning as my family name, ‘mountain’. Also, when I visited Japan in 2008, one of my favorite trips was to the mountain village of Takayama. That settled it. My Japanese family name would be Takayama 高山, written with two kanji.

First name? Well, I liked the sound of the Japanese name Kitaro (KEE-tah-ro) and so I was playing with the idea of being called Takayama Kitaro. Still, I wasn’t really happy with my personal name (first names come last in Asian culture) in either Chinese or Japanese.

Then, I watched the film The Inn of the Sixth Happiness and deeply identified with its heroine, Gladys Aylward, the missionary, whose Chinese personal name was Ren Ai 人爱. Because I identified so strongly with the missionary in the film, I decided to use a variant of her name for my Chinese first name.

From now on, my Chinese name will be Gao Ren Ai 高仁爱 (in Pinyin spelling the sound ‘J’ is spelled with an ‘R’ but you still say, Jen Ai), using three characters, as is customary in Chinese culture. My three-character Chinese name is on the painting of bamboo.

My Japanese name uses the same characters but is pronounced differently. There’s also an interesting twist to it. Most Japanese names are written with four kanji, not three as in Chinese, otherwise they sound incomplete. Well, what to do then?

My full Japanese name is written with the four kanji Gao Shan Ren Ai 高山仁爱 which, when pronounced in Japanese, become quite different—Taka Yama Jin Ai—or, grouping the syllables, Takayama Jinai… perfect! The family name is two syllables or more, and written with two kanji instead of just one as in Chinese.

The personal name stays exactly as in Chinese, but in Japanese is read and pronounced as Jinai (Jin-EYE). My four-character Japanese name is on the painting of the mountain. Oddly, the four characters can also be read and understood to mean ‘Mountain love.’ How beautiful!

Now, here’s the odd twist. If we reduce my Japanese name to the bare minimum—two kanji for the family name, Takayama 高山, and only one kanji for the personal name, choosing Jin 仁, the three-character name that results is not read ‘Takayama Jin’ as you would expect. That sounds horrible in Japanese.

The character Jin 仁 when standing alone as someone’s name is read Hitoshi (Hee-TOH-shee). Hence the name is read ‘Takayama Hitoshi,’ which sounds very respectable indeed! My three-character Japanese name is on the painting of the three birds. Again, very beautiful, and meaningful. Thanks to Aunt Melanie for giving me this idea!

In closing, a Chinese lesson.
Gao 高 = tall, high, lofty.
The Japanese equivalent, Taka, means the same.
Shan 山 = mountain (not used in the Chinese name, because implied).
Japanese, Yama, means the same.
Jen Ai 仁爱 > Jen 仁 = the bond of benevolence between two human beings (hence the character’s shapes, the ‘radical’ for human 人 joined to the number two 二 + Ai 爱 = love, hence ‘brotherly love’.

In Japanese, the two parts taken alone both mean love:
仁 being close to agápi love, 爱 similar to éros love.
Eros, in Greek, is the intimate love between human lovers,
and also the love between humans and God.

What a blessing this day is! We are alive, the world has not yet met its end, nor our lives, and here we are, by His grace, sharing the only love worth having, the love which made the worlds. And all for the sake of what's in a name.