Jack: Bear, Jack the Bear, Sir, Gege (big brother in Mandarin)
Elliot: E, Moose, Moose Goose, Didi (little brother in Mandarin)
PJ: Sister, Jie Jie (big sister in Mandarin), Little Miss, Tink
AnnaWen: WenWen, Mei Mei, Xiao Jie (respectively little sister and little miss in Mandarin)
When we started the adoption process, Wen's name was Annie. Steve didn't care what her long name was, as long as he could call her Annie. AnnaWen came out of a combination of her English name "Anna" and her Chinese name "ChunWen" so we could keep the most familiar (and prettiest) part of her Chinese name as Wen. She gets mad if you vary far from that. Wen or WenWen is acceptable but Anna or Annie is NOT. PJ will call her Anna to get her goat. She was very miffed when a present was given to her that said "Annie" - she could read well enough to announce "that is NOT my name!". If I call her "Sister" she insists "I'm not Sister, I'm MeiMei", even though both brothers can be called "Brother". She calls the boys by their Chinese nick names ("Gege" and "Didi") more often than anyone else, and if I listened, probably more often than by their real names...
I find this all very interesting. For a little girl who stopped speaking Chinese in China when she realized we didn't understand her, who steadfastly refused to acknowledge comprehension whenever someone spoke Mandarin to her since, she is gripping hold of those Chinese monikers and won't let go. It makes me wonder about the intent behind it, then wonder if I'm reading intent where there is none.
N
2 comments:
It is all very interesting but I sure as hell hope I remember when I get there in the summer to call her by the name she wants to be called...
I'm like you, I read into a lot of things. Sometimes there's probably nothing behind it, but you can't help but wonder.
Lilah wouldn't even look at our Chinese friends when she first came home. And them talking to her in Mandarin, she almost seemed to get mad. We thought it would be great of they could talk to her in the language she understood. But she was having none of it. I wonder now was it just too soon to try, was she still just grieving. I should try and get our friends to chat to her again and see if she'll listen or even understand.
Jill
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