I may not use my ‘beautiful’ Chinese name often, but I’m glad of the gift

Call me Beautiful.

My two sisters shared Ee, followed by a personalised second syllable. Likewise, my female paternal cousins adopted Ee, plus a second character. Meanwhile, the boys in the same generation had a different Chinese character that was common to all their names.

I was also named Christina. This is right there on my birth certificate, where someone thoughtfully scrawled in the right margin the three Chinese characters for Toh Ee Wan. Despite Chinese language classes in primary school, I never did pick up much Chinese writing capacity, but being able to write my Chinese name is one thing that has stuck.

I’ve always been called by my Christian name only, and nearly always by its full three syllables. My older brother, Christopher, went by Chris; I became Tina to my immediate family and relatives.

A journalism professor in the United States started calling me Chris during my undergraduate studies. I didn’t like it, but didn’t say anything. And then there was the occasional question as I met more Americans. “No, what’s your real name?” they’d ask, when I introduced myself. Perhaps they were hoping for something a bit more exotic.