Fun with Chinese Names

Someone mentioned yesterday that Zhou Xiaochuan (周小川), governor for the People's Bank of China is one of those tipped to be Chinese Premier one day. That's nothing new, of course.

But the first thing that crossed my increasingly frivolous mind was - would Chinese accept a Premier with a somewhat frivolous name like "Xiao Chuan", which means "little stream"?

Of course factors like names would probably never enter into mainstream discussions about leadership succession.

But among ordinary Chinese, I've heard stories about how apart from other obvious reasons, Wu Bangguo (吴邦国) should never have been appointed senior statesman coz his name sounded like "of no help to the country" (无帮国) or even "no nation state" (无邦国). But despite his less-than-auspicious name, he is still ranked number two on the Politburo Standing Committee. A clear indication that names does not matter as much as political acceptability.

Then there was Wei Jianxing (尉建行), whose name sounded like "not being able to build something well", which was perhaps why his efforts in tackling corruption were limited. Wei was a Politburo Standing Committee member after the 15th Party Congress tasked with tackling corruption.

And during the country's efforts in tackling the 1997 floods, propaganda department officials reportedly demanded that a prominent CCTV reporter (and later well-known host) be taken off-air, as his name was Shui Junyi (水均益), which sounded like "water spilling all over". Not very auspicious of course, in this context.

Anyone has anymore to add to the list?