bee & ethan

Ethan kicks off the story

We had the name Sage before she was born. Unfortunately, that’s all we had… we tossed around lots of ideas for the middle and last names.

As reference, let us review our names:

1. Ethan J. A. Schoonover - Named by parents that, for a brief time considered “Ventilator Shaft” as a viable first/middle name. I kid you not.
2. Lim, Bee Gnoh - Has two sisters also named Bee. Parents get points for consistency there.

And options for last names. We considered combining our last names:

1. Slimover
2. Schim
3. Limoon
4. Overlim

While appealing for a span of about five hilarious seconds, we decided these were not feasible and possibly constituted excessive cruelty to our offspring so we determined to use one of our last names. But which one? At one point there was a rock paper scissors game that we thought had decided it. I liked the idea of naming the child based this timeless battle of wits.

Bee picks up the thread…

I wanted to give her a Chinese name but had a hard time coming up with something that everyone liked (including Ethan) before she was born. In the end, I decided to enlist a fortune teller (with her date/ time of birth to give her the most auspicious name) to come up with some names. All four of the names he suggested to me (after taking almost 2 weeks to do so) were terrible and even worse than the ones I came up with. Ironically, it was Ethan who came up with her Chinese name (while I came up with Sage). He said, why don’t we pick a character that means wise/ intelligent to go with Sage. Thanks to the internet (its wonders never cease to amaze me), we came up with a list and I saw a character that I really liked:

It is a beautiful character and not tacky (trust me on this, there are many that are). So now we have a Chinese name, and the hard part is yet to come..

Ethan’s Chinese Proposals

Ok, I have to fess up: once I came up with the “wise/intelligent” bit (only because I was deadset against naming her “pretty” or “white like the moon” or anything else that is about looks alone) we were looking through the list of characters and there was one that I was really tempted to lobby for:

Bee never let this one get off the ground, however.

Back to Bee

Last Name:

We debated back and forth on this (see above). Definitely no hyphenation because the name would be incredibly long. Ethan said since I gave birth to her and carried her for 9 months, she should have my last name (since she already has a Western first name). I thought Sage Lim didn’t sound as good as Sage Schoonover, but I liked the thought of her having my last name. So we finally agreed that she would have my last name, and off we went to the registrar.

Ethan goes to the registrar

We wrapped up our bundle of documents and I headed out the door to the registrar.

Entering the third floor government office I gravitated to the large glass enclosed desk. The Hong Kong civil service is fairly efficient but has the stale odor of any government bureaucracy. There are computers, but rubber stamps and perforated forms remain a vital part of the government office ecosystem. The woman behind the desk window was leaning with arms resting on the table, eyes peering over her glasses at a man that was standing silently in front of her. Just standing there. He had a sudden verbal spasm and waved a paper about and she responded firmly. Then silence. Then more paper waving and finally he stormed off out the door.

I was, I’ll admit, not encouraged.

I hand her our IDs, passports and provide the information on where and when our daughter was born. She hands me a tattered piece of orange paper. It reminds me of an old library catalog card (our younger readers may not know about these), tattered and worn almost waxy with a damp over-handled feel and a million creases. On it was printed a guarantee that the bearer of the card, now known no longer as an man but merely the number “76″, would be seen between 4:15 and 4:30. And indeed I was.

Sitting next to several families that had brought their swaddled infants (I felt practically underdressed sitting there childless with only government forms to cover my modesty) I was called to the window by a man that seemed to me a Chinese version of Mr. Roger’s more meek and soft spoken sibling. His shoulders poked up sharply from under his sweater as he leaned forward toward the window pane and whispered that he’d like to see my documents. I slipped them carefully under the glass and imagined for a moment that, had I brought sage, I might have had to slip her under as well for a quick rubber stamping and xerox. Nodding he hands me a form to fill out: Father’s Name, Father’s Last name, Mother’s Name, etc. etc.

I complete this and fill in Baby’s name:

Sage Ying Schoonover Lim

He looks at it, then at me. “You are married?”

“Yes, in Hong Kong”

“Your baby, you must write your last name there. Please change.”

“Actually, we want to use my wife’s last name.”

“Cannot.” A meek grin. I hear the Mister Rogers theme song in my head as I look at the official behind the counter.

“What do you mean… We can’t use my wife’s last name?”

“Yes. Cannot.”

“But why?”

“We just do not do it…” He is polite, this Mr. Rogers of a Kafka novel, but I am clearly causing trouble.

“Ok, it is not done. Do you mean it’s uncommon or is it actually against the law?”

This stops him. He says he will check and gets up quickly and scurries away. I’ve actually been polite during this, but I’m not going to back down yet. I have no idea where he has gone. I imagine him getting on that little train that Mr. Rogers had and going to the Magic Kingdom where he will get the golden bound books that clarify whether this is illegal or simply “not done”. He is gone for a very long time. He comes back.

“Yes. It is not done.”

“But my wife is Chinese and we want to keep her name.” A shallow and transparent appeal to him as a member of the global Chinese community.

“She is Chinese?”

“Yes. Malaysian Chinese.”

He looks down at all her documents and nods again, slowly and constantly for some time. It turns out that since some of Bee’s grandparents are from actual, you know, China, and since she can prove it (which we did using other various forms acquired from other various bureaucracies) Sage has permanent Hong Kong residence. This rocks for her. Not even Bee has this yet. He didn’t ask if my grandparents were from China, and luckily for me as I would have been sorely tempted to make up some story.

I ended up making another trip back and finding out that if Sage were “illegitimate” (like anything to do with marrying me can be termed “legitimate”. ha!) she could keep Bee’s name. Later when we looked at the birth certificate we realized that there wasn’t even a field for the baby’s last name. It’s just assumed that it has to be the father’s. It’s as if the lack of the field on the birth certificate form is all that limits us. Surely not. (cue snickering from ghost of kafka)

Bee’s wrap up and the final name

We thought about petitioning the whole name business but that could take some time and I wanted to get her a passport soon as we only have a few weeks to do that before she travels, so this is what’s on her birth certificate:

(I decided to go with Chinese pinyin of my last name and put it last name first as is the custom with Chinese names). So in the 21st century, HK law is still very patriarchial, as is Malaysian law…

So now she’s a HK PR and an American citizen, and I want her to get a Malaysian citizenship as well, but because she wasn’t born in Malaysia or Singapore, and because “only” the mother is Malaysian, she’s NOT eligible! Again, another archaic law but I’m not surprised given that Malaysia is a muslim country.

So that’s the lowdown on Sage’s identity. Now she has a birth certificate and plane tickets booked to Malaysia and the US. Next on the list: US passport!