My parents named me after a Japanese supermarket

你好！我的中文名字是夏馨。

Hello! My Chinese name is Xia Xin.

That brief sentence is enough to merit amazed smiles from any interested Chinese conversationalist.

"Your Chinese is so good!" they will exclaim with (usually unmerited) awe.  To Chinese people, you aren't really anybody until you have a Chinese name.  The process of selecting this name, however, is extremely complex.  Fortunately, two summers ago I was lucky enough to have Li Laoshi choose a "good" name for me while I was a clueless pre-freshman in summer school Chinese 101.

In order for a Chinese name to be "good," certain criteria must be met.  First off, my name had to sound something like Jessica Sewell, at least theoretically.  Of course, Chinese people don't always get the pronunciation quite right; Mandarin speakers have a particularly hard time pronouncing certain English syllables, including any one that ends in a consonant other than -n or -r.  The "ool" sound in my last name Sewell just wasn't going to work, so apparently my Chinese surname "xia4" 夏, meaning summer, is a good enough substitute for Sewell.

Given names in Chinese are one or two characters in length and need to give off some sort of positive vibe.  The crazy-looking character "xin1" 馨, my given name, is according to my professor Li, "a very good name! A girl's name! It means all the good smells together."  Xia Xin.  Summer and all the good smells.  Somehow just this name sums up my China experience and the whole complicated and confusing process of learning the Mandarin Chinese language in general.

夏馨

China- all the good smells?  Not quite. For starters, my previous summer in China didn't smell very good at all- at least, not to my untrained Western nose.  Between the distinctive and rancid flavor of the Chinese delicacy of "rotten tofu," the unavoidable layers of sun-blocking smog, the general Chinese neglect for such niceties as deodorant on city buses, and myriad other delightful odors permeating the crowded streets of Qingdao, China, the overall effect of inhaling Chinese air is an overwhelming sense of not so pleasant foreignness.  

But it's somehow more complicated than that. The "bad" smells of China are coupled with corresponding "good" smells: a whiff of scented tea; the tangy and succulent fragrance of Western Chinese "chuar," or Uyghur seasoned lamb-on-a-stick; the simultaneously conflicting and confusing conglomeration of smells associated with countless numbers of bustling Chinese people crowding onto buses, crowding into the Carrefour and Jusco (or Jasuko) grocery stores, crowding their way across busy streets without regard for crosswalks or streetlights, crowding anywhere and everywhere in crowds of crowds.  There is an almost tangible odor associated with this crowding and these crowds of people. It's overwhelming and chaotic and foreign and all over the place, just how traditional characters like my 馨 give off their own senses of vaguely controlled chaos.

Another curious thing about names in China is the Chinese people's fascination with English names. My Chinese roommate, my Chinese host family, even strangers on the street would approach this exotic-looking little blonde foreigner and after launching a curious conversation of pleasantries the question would occasionally arise: what is your English name? I know that "Jessica" is close to impossible for Chinese people to pronounce and I usually tried to avoid the question, but in one instance with my roommate Song Qing I let my English name slip.

 She seemed confused. "Jush-shi-ko?" she tried. "No, Jess-si-ka," I replied, slowly and with emphasis on each syllable. "Jushshekoh," she attempted again, with obvious effort and little improvement. "Not quite..." I began, only to see her face light up. "Oh! Ja-su-ko! Like the Jusco grocery store!" she exclaimed in Chinese. "But that's strange... Why did your parents name you after a Japanese supermarket?"

So what's in a name after all? According to Song Qing (or Sunny, her English name), before my birth my parents must have believed that the equivalent of a Japanese Target would make a good name for their daughter.  Not a word of protest on my part would change that perception- nor, for that matter, would a word on my part convince "Strong" or "Obama" (a couple of young Chinese men with misguided English names) that they might want to reconsider their "American" appellations.  Chinese names mean something; therefore, English names must also have a meaning. I can see how Sunny might see a name associated with the sun as bright, cheery, and full of life.  Strong or Obama, perhaps, see their names as powerful, manly, and important on the world stage.  Misguided, but truly well-intentioned attempts at names with meaning.

If names really pack that full of a punch, then I guess, in China, my name, like any name, has become a part of myself.  "All the good smells" is as much a part of me as my blonde hair, college education and family background. And it is "all the good smells" and everything that it implies that inspired me to begin this blog.  Here, I will reflect on my past and present experiences studying in the wonderful, chaotic, optimistic, and imperfect rising superpower of China.