Know a Chinese from His Name

Chinese names contain a spectrum of cultural information. It is one of the favorite topics the Chinese enjoy talking about. The process of exploring the meaning probably leads you to a close friendship.
The most common family names in China are li (李), zhang (张), and wang (王). There are now nearly 100 million Chinese with the same family name李. In Mainland China, women don't take their husbands' family names after marriage.
Chinese given names always follow their family names. People believe that the given names contain invisible fate and visible meaning in the choice of characters. Therefore, when elders name a newborn, they usually take several factors into consideration: astrology, birth date, a fortune-teller's advice, and the form, pronunciation, and meaning of the characters.

Some given names indicate the parents' good wishes and high expectations for their babies, like喜 xi (happiness), 贵 gui (preciousness), 聪 cong (cleverness), 丽 li (beauty); while some others convey the love of nature, such as,峰 feng (peak), 花 hua (flower), and so on.
In "A Life in Two Worlds," 姚明(Yao Ming) explains his name this way:
"My first name, Ming (明), means "light". To write it, you use two Chinese characters. The left one (日) means "the sun," and the right one (月) means "the moon". The two characters together mean light all the time, day and night.
My last name Yao (姚) doesn't mean anything in itself. It's just a last name like Jones. But the two characters making up of it, when looked at separately do mean something. The left part (女) means "woman," and the right part (兆) means "many," many, and many, like a billion, only more. So that means more than Wilt Chamberlain, right?"

Chinese Modesty

Modesty is one of the traditional virtures the great sage Confucius advocated. Although a great scholar, Confucius admonished his students, “When walking in the company of three, there must be one I can learn from”. To Confucius modesty and humility are required qualities for a society to sustain itself while pride will lead to destruction.

The typical example of the modesty is demonstrated by the host to his visitors. He will apologize for the ill-preparation and small quantity of his food, which turns out to be sumptuous banquet. And the modesty is also shown when the Chinese accept compliments. They always respond to compliments with “Nali, nail.(literally where? Where?)” – figuratively meaning, “I have done nothing to deserve your compliment.”


Another common way to show the Chinese modesty is that the Chinese often politely refuse offers of drinks, refreshments, gifts and other favors two or three times before graciously accepting them. Their modesty requires them not to open the gifts before the sender.



Their modesty requires them not to challenge but to respect, which results in a low profile of Chinese. This is sometimes misunderstood as no ambition or competitive spirit. Their modesty leads them more to group-consciousness rather than to individual-consciousness.