Why people from Asian countries pick up an English name for themselves?

Most Asian people would give themselves an English name, especially people from China, Taiwan, and Korea... If you are an English native speaker, then you might wonder why people use an English name to call themselves instead of using their original name? And some people's name might be very strange especially in English native speaker's eye! Are they really dislike their name? Or even feel ashamed for their name? 

As a Taiwanese, I know some Taiwanese name might really difficult to pronounce for those who are not able to speak Chinese fluently. Especially we have 5 tones in Chinese, but for those English native speakers, they don't know how to pronounce correctly even if we pronounce in English. That's one of the reasons why we Taiwanese people would like to give ourselves an English name to instead, because English has only two tones and it sounds flat. However, I disagree with some people say we suppose to proud of our name and we shouldn't have an English name! Seriously, having an English name doesn't mean we don't proud of our name! 

I will take an example of myself, my name suppose to be Gan, yu-ting (First name and last name) in Chinese, but in English, it will be Timothy Yuting Gan (Last name, middle name and first name). I have my English name since I was 4 or 5, even though I really forgot who gave me the name, I didn't change it for any reasons. Now, my English name became a formal name to me, and it shows on my passport and visa card. After I grew up, I found out it's a name from Bible. For me, I am really proud of my name, and I am willing to share the stories' with others. 

Here is a following link of the explanation for my name below,

http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+Timothy+1

If you ask me why most Asian people have an English name, I cannot give you a proper answer. However, there is an interesting thing I'd like to share you. In Chinese, every character has their own meaning, even sometimes one character has multi-meanings, so it's really hard to tell when you see the same pinyin in English. They look the same in English, but actually words in Chinese are totally different! For example, my name Yu-ting, it's a really common name in Chinese, especially most girl's name are Yu-ting. It's kind of embarrassing, but the characters are totally different. My name yu-ting (聿廷),  the word "聿(Yu)" is actually a word from an ancient officer's pen in court, and the word 廷(ting) means palace. In other words, my name yu-ting (聿廷) is a wish that I would become a person who works in the court in the future, or even represent me as a person who is a scholar. But for those some girl's name which also pronounce yu-ting, but in Chinese it may looks like 玉婷, the word 玉(Yu) means a jade, and 婷 means a beautiful girl with a good temperament. See the differences? We have same pronunciation but totally different meaning. If you do research about the culture in Chinese, then you will find out most of our name related to family, good wishes, a future, or a personality. 

For more English name information, you can follow to the link below,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j7R41LB9FF0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YtGnw5EePA4

All good things come to an end

There is a saying, "All good things come to an end." No matter where you are, this is a lesson you must learn in your life! Separation is suck when you have great connection with your friends. However, it is a growth process, and we all have to experience that. Though, it might make you feel sad!

Days on Guam passed by one month more already, sometimes it makes me feel sad when I am alone! I've got good friends here both from my church and workplace, but I still must be leaving them in less than one month soon.

Honestly, before I came here, there was a factor bothered me to make this decision. If I take this internship opportunity, I have to pay the visa fee and the flight ticket myself, and to balance the salary I get, actually it will still be negative. In spite of my purpose for choosing my current university was for this internship program because I've been self-learning English a couple years already, I wanted to know if I can really support my life abroad independently. Anyway, there was a voice came up to my mind and said, "If I didn't take the opportunity, I must regret in the future." Honestly, it was a crazy decision!

Many people asked me, how do you like Guam so far? And I'd always say I really love here! It is not joking though. When I say I love it, which means I really fond of it. Since I first came here, I did treasure every moment here on Guam because I knew that when time pass by, the day I stay here will be less and less, now I still feel like time flies so fast though! The sad thing is that, some of my friends will be leaving sooner than me! I feel sad because once they leave, I don't even know when can we meet up next time! I do deeply feel the word, "All good things come to an end, and it's a lesson we must learn from it." It's true though! It is a growth process, and it is all we have to experience!

If you ask me would you regret your decision coming to Guam now, I will definitely say I am really glad I made this decision! No matter what, I reached out part of my dreams because of this internship! If I didn't catch this opportunity, until now, maybe I will still be the one who keep the dream in my pocket and waiting a day to reach out! All I want to express is that, "If you have a dream, you should do everything that you can to achieve it!" Life is short, if you do something you don't like, then just don't waste your time! If you get limited time to reach out your dream, just purse it little by little! However, never say never! As long as you start to do something different from now on, trust me, it will reach our one day! Even though separation makes everybody feel sad, it makes you grow up and excited to meet them up next time! Care about people you meet, truly treating them, then that is a really great connection to keep up with!

- Timothinks