Remember who you are
My grandfather is close to 90 years old. I don’t know how old he is, exactly, because I don’t know when his birthday is. Neither does he.
I don’t know his story, except for the fuzzy details:
- His name is Junjie Zhang.
- His mother died when he was young. He didn’t remember her face. (Is that why he doesn’t know his birthday — is it because no one was there to tell him? Where was his father? My brother tells a story, of visiting our great grandfather’s grave — everyone kowtowed except for my grandfather, who said, “That old man? He wouldn’t care whether I was here.”)
- He was a farmer who became a barefoot doctor with a bag of acupuncture needles. He wanted all his children to study medicine, which they did. (He wanted me to study medicine too, but I went rogue. My grandfather holds the steadfast belief that being a doctor was the most important of professions. He explained that when I grew older, I would understand — and one mysterious chronic illness later, I do).
My grandfather raised my father, who brought the Zhang family to the United States. I was born in Gaithersburg, Maryland in 1990. My grandfather came to the United States in 1991. He was overwhelmed with joy to see me and my older brother, and gave us our Chinese names:
张思华 — Zhang Si Hua.
张念中 — Zhang Nian Zhong.
I don’t know how to translate it directly. Together, our names — 思念中华— mean: remember China. It is easier to break down the pictorial characters into how I understand them. Mind you, my Chinese is that of a Chinese American’s, and so this is filtered through what is lost in translation of a Chinese heritage to American soil.
思 —thinking , introspection, depth
念 — memory, legacy
中 — middle, of the middle kingdom, our name for China
华 —resplendence, magnificence, another word for Chinese
I was never proud of my name: Sihua. I never liked explaining my Chinese name: “remember China.” What’s there to forget? It’s where it is, across the ocean, I thought. I’m glad that they named me “Mona,” and that I didn’t have to struggle with teachers mispronouncing my name.
I was never particularly proud of that name, either — “Mona” sounded a little weird, especially compared to all the other kids with normal names: Brittany, Jennifer, Katie. I’m “Mona” because all my parents knew of Western names was the Mona Lisa.
Besides that, my last name, “Zhang”, simply never sounded very Important. It had no history — none of our textbooks mentioned any Great Men by the name of Zhang. Instead, there were many Zhangs in my classrooms, and it felt as though we were all nameless, faceless Zhangs — the Asian kids who were good at math and science.
Growing up, I remember that my grandfather always spoke of The Zhang Family, and The Zhang Name, with pride. He would speak in that deep, resonant voice of his that boomed, always shaking his calloused finger for effect. He liked to do that — boom and shake his finger at people.
I rolled my eyes whenever I heard it.
What does “Zhang” even matter, here, anyway? I thought. What does it even matter there, back in China? Aren’t there a million of us?
Recently, I met another Mona Zhang who lives in New York City. It was on a whim of Googling my name and thinking that Mona Zhang, a marijuana journalist, sounded like an awesome person to know. We shared our lives as Mona Zhangs over a 50 minute coffee.
I sent her an email. “I forgot to ask — how did your parents decide on Mona?”
She replied that she had had the same thought as we parted ways, and explained the origin of her name.
She asked: “Do you have a Chinese name?”
I began to write a response in my head: “I am 张思华,” it began. “My grandfather gave me this name, for myself and my brother…”
And as I composed the email in my head, I began to cry.
“Our names mean for us to remember China. My grandfather wanted us to remember who we are, and how we are Zhangs, and how Very Important we are.”
I think it is easy to forget, in a land where no one looks like you or shares your name, that Zhang means something.
Instead, it’s something you have to intentionally remember, every day.
I forgot for a little while who I was. I remember, now.
I’m Mona Zhang, 张思华.
My mother’s response:
Actually one of the reasons your first name is Mona: Mona 和 “木兰” 同音。in the bottom of my heart, I wish my daughter will be a brave and successful girl like “木兰” who has been known by Chinese population for 2000 years. “兰”又可叫“兰儿” who was the most important woman about 100 years ago.
