Watching a Chinese athlete I got to thinking about the way they begin their names with their surname. I have always found that strange, but they probably think the way we do it is weird. But wait. When a Chinese mom discovers that someone ate all the fortune cookies, who does she start yelling at? She suspects it was 3-year-old Yung Po, but if she is anything like my mom, the anger temporarily flusters her, and she starts rattling off names until she gets to the right child. “Yung Choo, no, Yung Dang, no Yung Brigham, no YUNG PO!” Don’t you think somewhere in the evolutionary chain of Chinese history there would be at least one angry Chinese mother that took a shortcut and realized the wisdom of first names?
(My mother always started with the firstborn and went in descending order. The bad news for the younger kids is that by the time she reached your name, she was even more upset because she couldn’t get your name right on the first 6 or 7 tries. The good news is that you had enough time to run away, pad your pockets, or change your name!)
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