Yao arrived in Houston wait, it is his mom, his mom arrived in Houston on Oct 2 to prepare for Yao's living..
While you seem to claim that you are literally correct, you are not - Yao Ming's mom's last name is not Yao or Ming, but her maiden name, Fang.
well, it is right in US, she will be called Ms. Yao. but in China thesedays, she still took her own last name, and in old traditional Chinese culture, she will be called Ms. Yao Fang + her first name.
Try not posting deceptive thread titles like "Yao arrived in Houston" when he hasn't. I went ahead and changed the title. Thanks.
That's not a Chinese tradition. I don't know any famous women ( women with name) in Chinese history were called that funny last name. It is a new thing that very few chinese( in Taiwan ) imported from western world.
coolpet is partly right that it's in Chinese traditional culture for Yao's mom being called Yao Fang + her first name. At least that's what goes on in Hong Kong.
It's Ok. Do you know Hong Kong's former female government official Chan Fang On-sang(English first name Anson)? Chan is her husband's surname and Fang her surname, and On-sang is her first name. Another example is Zhou Leung Suk-yi, another govenment official(HK's has so many key government officials being female, it's a feminist paradise) etc... Adding husband's family name to one's own name after marriage is a common practice in HK. A link for a poll on Anson Chan Fang On-sang's rating by the University of Hong Kong: http://hkupop.hku.hk/archive/poppolls/anson/
In China my married sisters official name is Lai Zhen Li. The Li was her maiden name and she does not take her husbands name, she married a man and his family name is Hung (Confucius).On the street if she meets a family friend, she can be called the equivalent of Mrs.Hung, although she herself would not think of her name as Mrs Hung.
Most women in China do keep their maiden name as their last name, it's not an old tradition, its just chinese culture. Hongkong and Taiwan might be diffrent these days, I don't know but most mainland Chinese still are pretty set in this way. So Yao's mother would be called Mrs. Fang, and that's typically how she would regard her self. Some might still call her Mrs. Yao, and that's acceptable too, especially here since most of Chinese descent (no matter taiwan, hongkong or mainland) seem to fused into a single entity of Chinese American.
