At about the same time I made the boo boo on the color yellow 黄 (see earlier post by same title), I made another one regarding my own name! That was during my first trip to China many years ago. During that period it was fashionable to address someone by 老 lǎo or 小 xiǎo for e.g. 小黄 or 老张 according to whether she is younger or older than you. It is also fashionable to call someone by their profession such as General Manager (总经理 zǒngjīnglǐ) Wang or 王总 wángzǒng. But it sure sounds odd to me when an engineer (工程师 gōngchéngshī) I knew with a surname of 朱 zhū is addressed as 朱工 zhūgōng. For it sounds exactly like 猪公 zhūgōng which means male pig.
This was what threw me off. I was often asked "how should I address you?" when they are asking for my surname. And I of course reply "我姓张" or my name is Zhang or Chang as it was written prior to 拼音 pīnyīn. Their response at that time puzzled me for they would say what sounds to me like 共产张 gòngchǎnzhāng or Communist Chang! I was wondering why the hell would they call me Communist Chang when I'm a 华侨 Huáqiáo or overseas Chinese but I never questioned them. It was later when my mandarin was better before I realized that they were actually refering to the components of my surname 张. For you see, 张 is made up of 弓 (gōng) 'bow' and 长 (cháng) 'long'. But to my untrained ears then, it sounded like 共产 which I recognized. No wonder they said a little knowledge is dangerous!
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