I took my wife’s houshold registration form to the courts for legalization as I assumed that this document IS her birth certificate. I need this legalized to get marriage registration back in Holland.
However, the people there told us that it is not the same and gave us a legalized document stating that my wife’s birth certificate was lost many years ago and cannot be re-issued.
Is this true, are there separate birth certificates ?
I am asking because my wife was a surprised as I was and it was her birth.
Certainly it is now, cannot comment on when your wife was born. Our daughter was born six months ago, and I have both a birth certificate - actually two, one in English and one in Chinese - and her household registration. You cannot complete the household registration without the birth certificate.
I had my marriage registered in Belgium and the only thing I did was that I had my Taiwanese marriage certificate translated and verified by the BTA (Belgian trade Association in Taipei). This translation I gave to my “dienst bevolking en burgerlijke stand” in my home town in Belgium. They registered my marriage. After that they issued me a paper that read that my name was … born … etc … and that I was married to …(my wife’s name)
Not exactly. A Chinese name will be entered - it doesn’t necessarily have to belong to the foreign spouse. I just had my name entered into my wife’s household registration recently. They would not accept my real name (which cannot be accurately depicted in Chinese characters) - they insisted on a standard Chinese character name. Now I have a Chinese name on my namecards, as well as a Chinese nickname, but they are for convenience - I do not really identify with them. My real name reflects my ethnicity and my ancestry, which can be traced for the last 600 years. I like it that I am connected to my ancestors by name.
If I were to have children here in Tawan, it would be important to me that they not have a “fabricated” Chinese name devoid of any real meaning or connection to a clan. At the Household Registration office, I therefore adopted, on the spot, the surname of my wife, so that if or when I have kids, at least their Chinese name will reflect one of their parents lineage. It pisses me off, though, that I have to have a Chinese name. It’s almost akin to saying that one has to BE Chinese in order to be recognized. The irony of course, is that the name is the only part of me that locals will recognize/accept at face value. As far as my life and my rights in Taiwan go, I’m still stymied on an almost daily basis. Sometimes it gets tedious.
I understand that Aboriginals in Taiwan are allowed to use their own non-Han names. I would be very interested to know if they are limited to names that can be depicted in Chinese characters, or if they are allowed to use romanized names.
Article 2 of the Xingming tiaoli (“Name Law”) says that Aborigines may register their names in pinyin along with names in Chinese script.
Foreign spouses of Taiwan citizens and their childen are required to take Chinese names and register them in Chinese script. The law specifically prohibits the registration of names using characters not listed in the Guoyu Cidian, Ciyuan, or the Kangxi dictionaries.
Well, it’s not like Taiwanese and Chinese who emigrate to America or Canada or Europe can go to the Immigration and Naturalization Service and request a green card with their name in Chinese characters. I’m sure they also don’t consider that ugly, misspelled mass of Roman characters that they do end up with to be related to their thousands of years of Chinese history and ancestry
Point taken, but at least they can keep their name in a phonetic system that can reproduce the intended pronunciation exactly. I can also tell from the phoneticization of a person’s name whether they are Cantonese or Mandarin speakers, something that they can’t even determine through the use of characters. Pronouncing my name from the various Chinese characters used in “translating” it is gibberish to Chinese and non-Chinese alike. A Chinese person’s name in romanization is only gibberish to people who can’t speak Chinese - an accurate pronunication of any Chinese phonetic system will be as good as reading from characters. The fact that we insist on a romanized phonetic system is inconvenient for all users of other languages, but at least we have the benefit of decent phonetic building blocks. “Mandarin” Characters aren’t good enough to represent the various sounds in other dialects in CHina, never mind foreign languages in other countries.
As much as I’d like to agree, I think you’re stretching the truth a little here. How many Americans can reproduce the intended pronunciation exactly when they see a Chinese person’s name? If I had a dollar for every time I heard a roll call and a Chinese person’s name came up and was botched most horrifically…
The various pinyin systems are only known among people who have learned Chinese as a foreign language. Does that mean you’d be satisfied if your name could be entered into the household registry system using KK?
Well, if you have a common name, chances are there is a common translation of that name. It is not a direct phonetic translation, but it’s a translation nonetheless. So when someone sees those characters, they know it refers to a certain English name. Only a few come to mind, but I’m sure there’s more. Lo2 bo2 te4 = Robert. Li4 li4 = Lily. Ye1 Su3 = Jesus (I know, dumb example, but I can’t think of any others off the top of my head, though I know they exist)
As much as I’d like to agree, I think you’re stretching the truth a little here. How many Americans can reproduce the intended pronunciation exactly when they see a Chinese person’s name? if I had a dollar for every time I heard a roll call and a Chinese person’s name came up and was botched most horrifically…
The various pinyin systems are only known among people who have learned Chinese as a foreign language.[/quote]
That’s not quite true - anyone who learns Mandarin in China knows how to pronounce pinyin. That’s a lot of Chinese. Anyway, my point was that Chinese in western countries can keep their name in a phonetic system that can (is capapable of) reproducing the intended pronunciation exactly. Those in the know can do it, those who aren’t can’t. It’s that simple. If someone is unfamiliar with the phonetic system, than it would not surprise me to hear butchered pronunciations from non-native speakers. But this problem isn’t limited to Mandarin. Ever hear some of the more creative interpretations of Champs D’Elysees? Heck, even Illinois and Detroit aren’t pronounced according to the phonetic system they are written in.
That’s a lot of Chinese people, but those aren’t the people that would need to use the pronunciation system. It’s the English speakers who would need to use it, and English speakers are precisely the ones who can’t read the pronunciation systems. Try pronouncing Xu if you’re from Kansas City. Practically speaking, if 99.9999% of the population can’t use the pronunciation system to accurately reproduce the original sound, because 99.9999% of the population have not taken Chinese classes, then for all practical purposes, it does not serve the function you’re attributing to it.
Should we then spell French words in a way that would make it easier for Kansas City natives to pronounce? Like gay Paree and Vishy-Swa? Bo-coo trouble, I think…
What about Polish (and other east European) names ? I have no idea how to pronouce those, but we keep the name as it is for those for do, and so we can get the name right when we do. Who knew how to pronouce ‘Srebrenica’ 15 years ago ? We didn’t mangle that to make it more pronoucable.
We did use to anglicize names, but we rarely do it anymore, wonder why that is ? Have we become more open, more international ? Do we respect other people more and at least try to get their names right ?
Imagine if we made people choose a name from a list of 400 (number of sylables in mandarin) English words… “Sorry, you can have that name, it’s not on the acceptable names list, but you can change the R to a L, and put a ‘uh’ at the end”
I’m talking here about on offical documents, where it’s not important to know how to pronouce it, but it is important that the same name it always used, ie. the one on the passport. I have no problem with chinese names used informally, although I don’t think some of our names are THAT hard to pronouce, they just don’t fit on the list. There is no word ‘ki’ in chinese, is that really unpronoucable ?
Is this normal procedure for both an English and Chinese birth cert to be issued when one of the parents are foreign or do you have to request it?
And was it a load of hassle for you to get them to give it?
