Two Very Precious Presents from Kathy!

Kathy is my former Chinese teacher. She lives in San Fran now. Last week she gave us two beautiful presents for Sophie. The first, and most important, was a name.

Dave and I are actually fortunate enough to know a few Chinese people who grew up in China, one of whom is Kathy, and they generally agree that an orphanage name is not, perhaps, selected like a regular Chinese name is selected. In China it is common for a name to be picked because it has some meaning to the parents, or may have been divined by a fortune teller, or relate to the child's birth time or year, etc. Many Chinese give their children names that reflect attributes they wish their children to have, almost wishes for their future. Dave and I decided that we wanted to give Sophie a Chinese name like that.

Kathy called in the big guns to help us, her mom and dad.

Kathy found the first part for us, joy. And then her dad found a name for us in some 3rd century poetry that combines joy, and that we just love . Her Chinese name, which reflects what we most wish for her in life, is unrestrained joy. The pinyin spelling in Mandarin is Changxin. We love it. We love the pinyin spelling; we love the characters; we love the meaning behind it, and we love naming her with a wish for her future included. Joy, to me, is a word that includes in it love, celebration, success, family, and of course, what is better than to feel joy in an unrestrained way? We have the whole Mok family to thank for it; it was a group effort, and certainly Kathy we thank the most. We could not have expressed ourselves without you.

Then, as if that wasn't enough, Kathy sent us this for our little Miss Changxin:

Isn't he beautiful? He is the softest teddy, and he's wearing a shirt with Sophie's Chinese name on it, in Mandarin (simplified) characters.

We will take it with us for the day we meet Sophie Kathy. And we cannot thank you enough for both generous gifts! We wish you much chang xin!

xo~

D&D