Little Wisdom

Photo by Cherry Lin on Unsplash

When Daniel and his three friends were taken by the Babylonians along with all the “cream of the crop” young men of ancient Israel, they were given new, Babylonian names. Daniel was named Belteshazzar, Hananiah, Shadrach, Mishael, Meshach, and Azariah, Abednego (Daniel 1:7). This was a clear case of cultural assimilation. The Babylonian empire intended to assimilate Daniel and his friends into its culture. The new names were an attempt to impose a new identity on them. Also, in naming them, the Babylonian empire asserted its power over them. They (re)name what belongs to them.

In this context, we can see Daniel’s resolve to not “defile himself with the royal food and wine” (Daniel 1:8) as not only an act of religious obedience to God but also as an act of resistance. He was trying to carve out at least one part of his Jewish identity from being assimilated or distorted. He was pushing back on the empire’s cultural assimilation.

It is interesting that throughout the rest of the book, even though his friends were often identified as Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, through their Babylonian names, Daniel was always Daniel. Was it a subtle linguistic signal to imply that Daniel, among all of them, was most successful in keeping his identity against imperial assimilation?

My Name

In North America, my name is most commonly “Shiao C. Chong.” In full, it would be Shiao Choong Chong. But growing up in Malaysia, my name was actually Chong Shiao Choong. Chong is the family surname. In Chinese culture, the family name traditionally comes first. In my opinion, it’s part of the Chinese worldview. The family is more important than the individual. Of course, that is also my mother tongue Hakka dialect’s pronunciation and transliterated into English. If we were to use the more common Mandarin Chinese pronunciation, it would be closer to: Zhang Xiao Zhong (using the Pinyin, the Romanized version of Mandarin).

Growing up, when I met another Chinese person, we often “compare notes” on our names. We ask for the meaning of the words that make up our names. Because Chinese is a tonal language, we also try to make sure we got the right tonal pronunciation. A different tone would be a different word. So, often we would also ask how the word, or Chinese character, was written. That would dispel any confusion.

Not knowing how to read or write Chinese, I was never good at learning other people’s names. I only knew enough to be able to explain to them what my name meant and how my name was written in traditional Chinese script. My given Chinese names – Shiao Choong – basically meant, “Little Wisdom”. “Shiao” means little and “Choong” is the first character in the word, “Choong-Min” which means intelligent, wise, clever, smart.

When I came over to Canada as an international student, I had to fill in customs forms and then later forms for university, etc. And the North American way (back then) was to ask for surname, first name and middle name. So, I filled in Chong, Shiao and Choong. In hindsight, I should have hyphenated my given names into one first name: Shiao-Choong. Because even though they are separate Chinese characters, they actually go together as a name. Instead, as North American westerners are prone to do, they initialized my middle name, if they don’t drop it out entirely. I am now Shiao C. Chong or simply Shiao Chong. And also, as they are prone to do, they tend to call me by my “first name”: Shiao.

I don’t like to be called simply “Shiao” because that’s just calling me “Little”. So, I prefer to go by my family surname, “Chong”. It’s like an affectionate nickname now. In a way, it’s my way of carving out my identity.

Call Me Chong

Only in North America have I been called “Shiao”. Nobody in Malaysia calls me “Shiao”. Teachers and schoolmates either called me “Chong” or “Choong”. Sometimes, “Shiao Choong”. But never simply “Shiao”.

My siblings all have “Shiao” in their names. My father named his children all as little something. My oldest brother is (thanks to the Malaysian government official who misspelled it) Siew Long, which means “Little Dragon”. My second oldest brother is Shiao Hock, Little Heron. Next, Shiao Lin, named after a mythical creature which I don’t have an English equivalent. My sister is Shiao Ying, Little Phoenix. The next brother is Shiao Shiong, Little Warrior. Part of the idea was a ying-yang balance. The “little” balances out the great propitious (especially in Chinese culture) names/terms. It adds some humility.

According to lore, when it came to naming me, the youngest, my dad was running out of ideas. It was my mother who named me Wisdom. Hence, I am Little Wisdom of the Chong family.

I often introduce myself by saying, “everyone calls me Chong”. All my friends, including my wife, call me Chong. Only strangers call me Shiao. Or those who keeps forgetting. Or those who stubbornly choose to.

Cultural Assimilation

I have been tempted, in the past, as well as pressured at some points, to take on an English name, like many other Asian immigrants have. In university, my professor who taught Ancient Greek could not initially pronounce my name. After a few tries, Rosemary finally gave up and said, “I will call you Charlie. Ok? In this class, you are Charlie.” She meant well. She was old and was nearing retirement. She did later learn to call me Chong. Rosemary was actually one of the nicest professors I had.

After graduation, I was unemployed for about a year. I sent out hundreds of resumes all over but was unsuccessful. At one point, a friend suggested that maybe I change the name on my resume. I sent out a few dozen resumes, otherwise identical to the previous ones, with the name, David Chong. I got a few callbacks for David.

In fact, my first paying gig after graduation was as David Chong, a Canon printer salesperson. I was assigned to a Staples store to demonstrate and promote the new Canon ink-jet printers. At that time, Canon was just breaking into the printers market. I have not put that experience on my current resume. It only lasted for a few months.

I got hired by Redeemer University (then College) as Shiao Chong to be an Admissions Counsellor. I am thankful for that Christian university’s openness to give me a chance.

Ever since then, I have staunchly stuck to Shiao Chong, especially to “just call me Chong”. I will keep this part of my identity against the cultural assimilation of the West.

Please note that the cultural assimilation pressures were not intentional, strictly speaking. The Immigration officers were not intentionally trying to change my name. They were simply designing forms according to their North American cultural norms. People calling me “Shiao” were not trying to be mean. They were trying to be friendly. My Greek professor was not trying to assimilate me by calling me “Charlie”. She did not encounter a lot of Chinese students in her Greek courses.

This is what it means by being systemic. It’s part and parcel of the system. It’s not any individual necessarily being bad or prejudiced. It’s the way things are designed, the way habits work, the way people just go about being people in this North American culture. Like calling someone by their “first name” to be friendly.

Not getting callbacks for resumes under Shiao Chong might be a little more complicated than that. This is an example of systemic racism. It may not be that the employers intentionally and deliberately reject Chinese names. But studies have shown that many foreign names – even Black sounding names, e.g. Jamal – do not get as high a response rate as more typical English names. Unconscious bias is real. It works at the unconscious or sub-conscious level. It is not strictly intentional. It is why best hiring practices these days try to remove names from resumes in the initial screening.

White people do not need to get all guilty and defensive about this. Just be aware. Learn. Change. Call people what they prefer to be called. I, personally, do not want people to apologize to me. I just want people to learn better and do better. Then, we will all be better for it.

(This post is also published on Wordpress: https://3dchristianity.wordpress.com/)