YakShaving

At service establishments in China that cater to many expat foreigners, people have name tags that read with familiar, Western names.   “Peter”, “Jill”, etc.

You know how sometimes people *look* like their names?   When the service people here have anglicized names, it is very rare that people “look” like their names.  At the front desk of my hotel, there’s a “Franco” and a “Morgan”.

There’s just something weird about that I find particularly unsettling.  People shouldn’t have to change their names so that Westerners can feel more comfortable to pronounce them.

If a real power shift happens in the world as the pundits portend, I wonder if Westerners will be changing their names to “Wang” and “Anoop” to be pronounced more easily by their Asian brethren.

** Of course, this declaration conveys my hypocrisy, since most people call me “Ash” rather than my full name, which inevitably gets screwed up.  I’m just sayin’, is all!