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  • (In Mandarin) What is your name?

  • You know, what's your name?

  • And they say: "Oh, my name is John."

  • And I say: "Ok, that's a little weird."

  • You know, you don't look like a John, but I mean, that's ok.

  • [Our perspectives about Taiwanese people having English names]

  • (In Mandarin) Why do I have an English name?

  • (In Mandarin) Oh, because my cousin is a foreigner.

  • (In Mandarin) They all have English names when they were kids, so I figured that I should have one, too

  • I find that to be pretty helpful, and I think a lot of foreigners do, because often it's hard for us to pronounce or remember their Chinese name.

  • It seems like people put a lot of time and effort into learning English here.

  • I think it just kinda shows a more international perspective, English is the global language.

  • But usually I also ask their maiden name, their born name.

  • Because that's interesting, I think people should be proud of that and telling people that as well.

  • When I met people that were from Asia, I think a couple of them tried using their real names.

  • Americans tried to say them, they messed them up so badly that they just gave up

  • It was harder for people to remember.

  • And, um, in the school that I worked at Korea, I never even learned their Korean namesever.

  • I taught the same kids for an entire year.

  • They called each other by their English names.

  • My name is Keith.

  • Okay? Keith.

  • Try to say that by yourself.

  • (In Mandarin) Are you done?

  • (In Mandarin) You have pronounced it wrong. Okay?

  • Because 99 percent of people in Taiwan, are going to say my name the wrong way.

  • They're gonna say 'Kai-ce', 'Kay-ce', 'Kai-ce', 'Kay-the'.

  • The point is, that you tried, and that's the important thing.

  • Look how Indians do it.

  • They have really long names like Rajaranum.

  • Those are way longer than any Chinese name that I have ever heard.

  • Do you know what the Indians do?

  • The Indians instruct the foreigner how to say their name.

  • There are even websites that say how to pronounce an Indian person's name.

  • Why did they do this?

  • So that IT departments can have better relationships with each other.

  • Because if you can say the real person's (person's real) name, it just, gives a good feeling to someone.

  • Your mother gave you your name!

  • You should be proud of that.

  • You should be proud that you are a Chen Wei-ling or a Liu Ao-bo, or whatever your names happens to be.

  • It's your name, and you should embrace it.

  • Once that you get to know the person, once you feel comfortable with them, I think you should say, hey, this is what my name is.

  • (In Mandarin) Thanks for watching.

  • (In Mandarin) If you like this video, please check out my other stuff at www.squawkonomics.com.

(In Mandarin) What is your name?

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