Life for a child in the old ages of China isn't easy. According to Chinese belief, a child is supposed to have passed some thirty dangerous barriers by the time he reach the age of 15 years. To get about this nicely, there's many who believe the saying that if one wishes to facilitate the raising of one's child, he should give him a lowly name as his childhood name, such as dog, goat or horse -- think 50 Cent, Akon, Black Eyed Peas of modern days -- insofar the child can go pass the maleficent demon who's guarding the barriers without notice.
There's actually a whole lot of evidence I can pick out from my kit bag to back up this saying about name composition. For instance, shakers and movers like Ssu-ma Hsiang-ju whose childhood name was Chuan-tzu (dog), Huan Hsi's was Shih-tou (stone), Fan Yeh's was Chuan-er (brick), Mu-jung Nung's was E-nu (despicable slave) and Yuan I's name was Yeh-i (underworld messenger). The list just lingers on: there were also 'Striped Beast,' 'Bald Head,' 'Tortoise,' 'Badger' and what not. The more you mince about this trial of naming logic, the more it stands to reason that naming your boy a 'Fag' will be one of the most sensible things to do to protect him from being bullied.
And it's getting hard to keep up when we're even naming a orange in the same manner, which is not to say the name is not great. Dekopon, which is named so because its large protruding pump on the top.
All fitting, novel and good. Just that it isn't so resonant to induce any sensual desire. This is easy to comprehend because the Japanese was obviously being too frivolous, empty-headed, flippant, dizzy -- you name it -- when it was debuted and hence hasn't pay attention to this fading art of naming in China.
To pick up where it's left, we Chinese somehow, along the years, have given it a more congratulatory name (without its parents' notice).
We call it the Nipple Orange.
