The importance of being Andy Lau

liudehuaandylauname.jpgWe came across an odd story about a guy who's had a lot of shit luck on account of his name: Liu Dehua, which is the same as the Chinese name of Hong Kong megastar Andy Lau. Unfortunately, instead of getting mad chicks, this Liu Dehua has been derided by business partners and dumped by girlfriends because of his name. One of his girlfriends told him that people would always take the piss by comparing him to the "real" Liu Dehua, which made her feel like she had no face, which is why she ended up dumping him. Liu himself said that his business deals went sour because of the name, because someone how people just couldn't take him seriously.

What's really ironic is that Liu Dehua isn't his real name. In fact, his name ought to be Liu Jianhua, because the siblings in his generation all have "Jian" as the middle character. So how did he end up being "Dehua"? Because, someone in a bumble-fuck township government office in Chongqing municipality probably wrote his name wrong. If you stab yourself in the eye and squint long enough, the characters for Jian (健) and De (德) look kinda similar. Or maybe you have to be illiterate, and then stab yourself in the eye. Anyway, the title of the article says that Liu now suffers from depression, and he feels like he's going to have to go back home and officially change his name.

Picture from news.163.com

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Comments (7) [rss]

user-pic

I feel this guys pain, since my Chinese name is pretty damn close to a Hong Kong mega-star's. For twenty years I've heard the same jokes "oh you must be his little brother"

Listen .. . 1. I've heard all the jokes before and 2. My parents named me well before he got famous.

user-pic

Once I had a student on my class roster named Chen Xue Bian. All the students would laugh whenever I called it. She never showed up at school, though. Maybe she also couldn't face the world with a name like that.

I like the way that Peijin always inserts some choice profanity into his posts.

My english name is Michael Bolton.

user-pic

Why don't you just go by Mike, instead of Michael?

Because...when a man loves a woman...

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Actually, this kind of bumble-fuck name change happens fairly often. My wife's name got accidentally recorded wrongly by a teacher in some official school records. Next it got transfered on to her ID. Now it's impossible to change it back.

I'm guessing the teacher was literate, but I could be wrong.

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