Dad, did you write poems to mom?
A typical Chinese restaurant with the familiar buzz of conversation, three generations sitting at a table, and bowls of rice held closely to your face. We always knew that mom and dad named us early in their dating years, giving names like little rain for the weather as they rode together on a motorcycle during college days, little road for the path they walked together.
My assumption was that little poem was for poem's that they wrote to each other, but though my parents use Chinese equivalents of "honey" and "dear", I have yet to hear them recite poetry to each other. So where, mom and dad, did my name come from?
On a tangent, we brainstorm a few other names that would have been funny had we had more siblings. Little wind, to go with the rain and thunder, would have been fun for a younger sister, but xiao fong is phonetically similar to Little Crazy, and that would never do.
We wanted 雷風 (Lei Fong--thunder and wind), but that would have been too much, my mom says to explain 小雷 (Xiao Lei), Little Thunder, our youngest brother.
Xioa Shi--the beautiful story that sums everything up, a story so beautiful like a poem. Dad says while mom leaves the table to wash her hands. Dad says this with the look that always makes us roll our eyes, the daddy look of one so proud.
Mom returns and we stay on topic. But we had a girl, and you can't name a girl Little Thunder. So I said to your dad, I want a 詩情畫意 name.
詩情畫意 (Shi Ching Hua Yi)--A Chinese saying you use when something is so beautiful it's like a hua tu (picture) and shi ching (like a song) at the same time. Or like painting poetry. And so my name--the exact characters 詩情 --they named me.
潘詩情--when you write it out, it is so, so beautiful, my mom says. Did I know my mom so loved my birth name? The feeling, the emotion of love. I always directly translated it to Love Poem, but now, 23 years later, I find there is so much more.
The third child, the one with a special name that breaks the traditional pattern of matching sibling names. Of course, they give me 小詩 to match with 小雨, 小 路 ,小雷. And at times I have been wondered about the loss of the name my parents first gave me, remembering my days as a child when people would use my official name, birth name. When we cross paths with old family friends, they call me 詩情. But these days, most people don't know that the Little Poem is, well, a nickname that matches with Little Rain, Little Road, and Little Thunder.
But tonight, I will remember I am different and I am special. Though a big family and four-kids family builds in a seemingly never-ending comparison complex, though often a half thought is often spent hoping your siblings don't take things the wrong way, though your parents remind you often that they love you all, love you all so much...tonight I hear the passion in my mom's voice as she tells me my name was taken straight from a beautiful, beautiful phrase. Though I chuckle in my head that a daughter named after such emotion often chooses cold reason instead, I also marvel that I have lived so long not knowing how much my mom loves my name. If I could, I would give her permission to call me by that first name again.
Tonight I will sign my name as
潘詩情
A typical Chinese restaurant with the familiar buzz of conversation, three generations sitting at a table, and bowls of rice held closely to your face. We always knew that mom and dad named us early in their dating years, giving names like little rain for the weather as they rode together on a motorcycle during college days, little road for the path they walked together.
My assumption was that little poem was for poem's that they wrote to each other, but though my parents use Chinese equivalents of "honey" and "dear", I have yet to hear them recite poetry to each other. So where, mom and dad, did my name come from?
On a tangent, we brainstorm a few other names that would have been funny had we had more siblings. Little wind, to go with the rain and thunder, would have been fun for a younger sister, but xiao fong is phonetically similar to Little Crazy, and that would never do.
We wanted 雷風 (Lei Fong--thunder and wind), but that would have been too much, my mom says to explain 小雷 (Xiao Lei), Little Thunder, our youngest brother.
Xioa Shi--the beautiful story that sums everything up, a story so beautiful like a poem. Dad says while mom leaves the table to wash her hands. Dad says this with the look that always makes us roll our eyes, the daddy look of one so proud.
Mom returns and we stay on topic. But we had a girl, and you can't name a girl Little Thunder. So I said to your dad, I want a 詩情畫意 name.
詩情畫意 (Shi Ching Hua Yi)--A Chinese saying you use when something is so beautiful it's like a hua tu (picture) and shi ching (like a song) at the same time. Or like painting poetry. And so my name--the exact characters 詩情 --they named me.
潘詩情--when you write it out, it is so, so beautiful, my mom says. Did I know my mom so loved my birth name? The feeling, the emotion of love. I always directly translated it to Love Poem, but now, 23 years later, I find there is so much more.
The third child, the one with a special name that breaks the traditional pattern of matching sibling names. Of course, they give me 小詩 to match with 小雨, 小 路 ,小雷. And at times I have been wondered about the loss of the name my parents first gave me, remembering my days as a child when people would use my official name, birth name. When we cross paths with old family friends, they call me 詩情. But these days, most people don't know that the Little Poem is, well, a nickname that matches with Little Rain, Little Road, and Little Thunder.
But tonight, I will remember I am different and I am special. Though a big family and four-kids family builds in a seemingly never-ending comparison complex, though often a half thought is often spent hoping your siblings don't take things the wrong way, though your parents remind you often that they love you all, love you all so much...tonight I hear the passion in my mom's voice as she tells me my name was taken straight from a beautiful, beautiful phrase. Though I chuckle in my head that a daughter named after such emotion often chooses cold reason instead, I also marvel that I have lived so long not knowing how much my mom loves my name. If I could, I would give her permission to call me by that first name again.
Tonight I will sign my name as
潘詩情
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