Monster/ Panda/ Road

Chinese names can't simply be translated to English. Same goes for Americans who want a Chinese name.
It's not like Michael is Miguel in Spanish or Juan in Spanish is John in English.
Also, Chinese go by their last name first and their first name last. For example, I would introduce myself as Barredo Luis.
If you translate your names directly bad things can happen as you will later find out.

My Chinese name was given to me by my Chinese teacher at The Citadel. It is, Bai Long Fei, which means White Flying Dragon or White Dragon Fly. I prefer the first translation with obvious reasons. haha I often introduce myself as Bai Long Fei and it often draws back many oohs and awws from local Chinese.
They often say, "this is a very strong name" or, "this is a very martial arts type name".
(Thank you to Mrs. Yao at The Citadel for giving a good strong Chinese name).

I walked in about ten minutes before the start of the class. There was one student there who helped me by turning on the classroom lights and opening the windows. I walked out to buy a bottle of water and returned to my classroom about five minutes later. By this time, there were about 15-20 students chattering. Once I walked in, they stopped talking and locked their eyes on me. Their eyes and faces filled with curiosity and excitement. As Dean Li had mentioned, I am the first foreign English professor to teach non-English majors for a full semester (Dr. Silver had taught some week long classes about Economics). Many of them were behaving like school children by giggling uncontrollably. This especially happened when I spoke directly to any one of the students. It was quite a seen. Their laughter made me laugh and the first two minutes of class was nothing but laughter.

After the unintentional icebreaker, I passed out the attendance sheet and instructed the students to write their American names, as well as their majors. Their blank stare after I spoke gave me the indication that they did no understand me. I repeated myself, this time speaking slowly. I also instructed them to write their American name (if they had one) on the middle of a blank piece of paper. I then told them to fold the piece of paper in thirds from top to bottom to make a triangle shape. This, if executed properly, would make the paper stand up in a triangle shape which displayed their names.

The below are some conversations with the students, as well as part of their introduction speech to the class.
(I had them introduce themselves by their name, age, major, hobbies and family information).

Me: "Your American name is Monster?"
Student: "Yes".
Me: "Do you know what that means?"
Student" Yes, and I like it."


Student: "Hello class, my name is Panda and I chose this name because if I ever travel outside of China other people will know where I come from.
Me: "hahaha. Panda, you know there are Pandas in Japan and Korea?"
Student: "oohhh..." (with a confused, disappointed look in her face)
Me: "But I'm sure they are all exported from China." (with a I guess, I don't really know look in my face)

She then smiled fiercly and kept on introducing herself

Me: "Is your last name in Chinese, "Lu?"
Student: "Yes."
Me: "Is this why your American name is Road?"
Student: "Yes."

Lu means road so he decided to translate his name directly, which doesn't quite work out. hahaha

Me: Your name is Matha?
Student: Yes, Maaah-sssa.
Me: Are you sure its not Martha??
Student: Oh yes, yes, yes. It's Maaarrr-sssaa. Sorry.

Same thing happend with a student named "Keving". But really his name was Kevin.

All three classes went by quickly and sucessfully. Some students who didn't have American names stayed after class and I helped them pick one out.
Some of the names picked, were Rachel, Ashley, Veronica (pooka), Rita, Chris, and my favorite, Tamika! They like the way it sounded, and kept on saying it.
Taa-Meee- Kah, Taa-Meee-Kah, Taa-Meee-Kah ( with a heavy pronounciation of the K, they really liked the K sound). hahaha