I Have a New Name!

When I started Chinese class James and I decided my Chinese names would be "Huasheng," which means peanut, and is not in fact a real Chinese name.

This was fine before I started considering myself a serious Chinese student and began speaking to people in Chinese. Because now people expect me to have a Chinese name, especially when my English name is Leslie, "less" or "lez" is a sound that plain doesn't exist in Chinese, so it's very difficult for folks to say. And Huasheng/peanut is just stupid.

My new language exchange partner, Kevin, remedied this problem and redubbed me "lay-su-lee." So that's my name in chop/stamp form at the top of the post. He says it means "beautiful lace." Personally, I prefer the Gaelic meaning "grey fortress," but I like my chop!