Did nobody pay attention when they told us how to address/refer to Yao?

His mom and dad both calls him by his full name Yao Ming you will never here another Chinese person call him just Ming unless they dont know any better. Most chinese names has three characters and people ususally call the name of the first and middle characters to people they are familar with. In Yao Ming's case he has only two characters and thus is pronounced as so.

 

I know people don't like me doing it, but can I tell williamson to "Stop Posting"?

 

I would like to call him "Champion" along with the rest of the Rocks . . .

 

Yao Ming said you can call him anything you like but don't call him late for dinner !

 

You could call him Susan if you want to, as long as he brings the rings!

 

You seldom call a person (close friend or not) just his surname in Chinese. But the discussion of what we should call Yao Ming in English is imo not very important. In more formal writings, you can use the English convention of using the surname (just like calling Deng Hsiao-peng "Deng" in all western press). For informal use, many Chinese in the western culture simply adopt an English christian name or ask people to call themselves one of the syllables in their given name. So, Ming is perfectly OK in English for casual use.

But calling him "Mr. Ming" is plain ignorant.

 

I recently saw the movie, "The Red Violin," in which a family friend calls to a boy: "Ming!" Is that OK because he's a boy, or because the person speaking to him is a friend?

If it's OK to call Francis Steve and to call Mobley Cat, is it OK to call Yao Ming?

 

I don't know if this has already been posted--I didn't read all the posts in this thread--but nba.com had Yao listed under "Y" at first and only recently started listing him under "M."

 

You are ferfectly correct! I was the one requesting the correct format, some months ago. If you talk of him, the correct and polite way is Yao Ming and no other way!

 

That's the way my family goes at it. I have an English name but my aunts and uncles use my given Chinese name while my cousins use the English name.

There's pretty much no "official" standard I can think of because some Asian personalities flip flop their name to the formal English standard while others like Yao keep their name in the Chinese standard.

 

it doesnt matter how but i can tell u he is starting to play consitent.

 

it is our duty as rude americans to butcher peoples names as we please.

 

Rockhead:- Its the Truth!!!

 

With all the Hero worship going on here,,,,maybe we should address him, more correctly as,,......His Highness

 

HAHAHAHA ....great pun!!! His Highness. You kill me.

 

Then there was that quote by.....uhh....#11 of the Rockets who said 'I don't care what people call me.'

That's always a important tidbit...

 

this all would be important if we were addressing him in person.

Since we are discussing his activities on an internet message board, I dont think it really matters.

I personally refer to him as Yao or YM.

 

Ok, let me first start off by saying that i enjoy reading these boards, even if i've never posted here before....

Also, i love everyone here, so don't take my upcoming "comment" too personally....

But....i am amazed to see how everyone in the here has become an expert on Chinese culture...i've learned so much reading this thread !

Ok, sarcasm aside, not being in the states, and not getting a lot of info about Mr Yao Ming, i did not know which was his first name and which was his last, i have been enlightened on at least one thing...

However, i think apart from facts such as first/last name, yall should stick to bball, world culture/history is not really people's forte here...it just becomes laughable when american baskeball fans start arguing about things like that....

 

Why? This gets into a fun philosophical issue of whose culture should be respected: the visitor or the local. Funny that if we go to China, we're supposed to respect their culture and do things their way and if they come here, we should respect their culture and do things their way. Bottom line - when in Rome...

He's in the states now and therefore, the US culture is the one that should be respected.

 

Yao is his surname (last name) and Ming is his First Name.....

for us chinese, we seldom call each other by the surname unless it is quite special like Ming's name, but it is still quite seldom.....

normally we will call each other by our first name, well, normally we will have two words for our first name.... for example, Zhizhi (which if u write in chinese is actually 2 words). But sometimes they just use one word for their first name like Yao Ming's one.... and normally when u have only 2 words in your name (as in when u write it in chinese), ppl will normally call u Yao Ming. Unlike Wang ZhiZhi, normal friend will most likely call him Zhizhi only.....

well, for the good friends, relative or whatsoever, normally we call each other by the last word of their first name.... for Yao Ming, it will most likely be Ming...... I bet their parents wun be calling him Yao, as it will be like calling everyone in their family.... so most likely the parents will call him Yao Ming or just Ming......

hope u guys get what I am trying to say..... I suppose those first name and surname and all those things there are a little complicated.... but that's the way it is for chinese.... though for us, it is really easy.....

for those who understand what I am trying to say, hope this clear things up for u guys