It was serendipity to return from seeing Li Huayi paintings at the Honolulu Art Museum and find among my hoard of fabrics a cloth decorated with prints of Chinese brush paintings. How it got to me in the mid-west I haven't a clue. It was printed in Honolulu too.
'Munn Haw' (Cantonese), 'Ming Ho' (Mandarin) each translate to 'Day & Night' or 'Sun & Moon', poetically meaning 'Bright'. Add one more character for 'River' and it refers to the Milky Way.
Ming Ho
Munn Haw
I thought I may have trouble getting Dad's state ID, especially since he had dementia, but it was Mom who had a hard time. The name on her social security card didn’t match her old drivers license, or her birth certificate. The clerk sent us to get her marriage certificate from another office, perhaps that would help, but it only brought into play a third name!
Mom was told to come back with an English name when she started elementary school. The teachers (haoles/caucasians) couldn't handle all these "foreign" names. And so all my life I knew her as 'Beatrice'. Her Cantonese name 'Munn Haw' is recorded on her birth certificate in 1918. She changed her name to ‘Ming Ho’ (Mandarin) when she got married but only on the wedding certificate. (Why? Because it's prettier!) The trick was to come up with an ID that would satisfy all these different documents.
Everyone has layers of identity. Mom could dress up in a silky red cheong sam and be 'Ming Ho', while also 'Beatrice' in a floral Hawaiian print dress as a Kindergarten teacher. 'Ming Ho', 'Munn Haw', 'Beatrice'...she will always be Mom to me.
