What's in a name

What's in a name Dear students of boring topics. Today's lesson is the street naming convention found around Beijing. To a foreigner, the names may seem a bit exotic or mysterious but once you break them down, they are quite boring. The strange thing is, it's hard to get a local to break them down for you (like say my wife) but other foreigners are quite happy to. Let's start with my address: 26 Chaowai Da Jie. Well, the 26 is easy enough. Let's say you are on Chaowai and looking for #26. It is nowhere to be found. You ask the local security guard, where's #26? He will have no idea. Even if you are speaking perfect Chinese (which you¡¯re not). Two problems here. First, and most important, Beijingers do not use address numbers. The use relative positions to known landmarks. So you would accurately describe my building's location as across from Kuntai or down the street from Lan Bao. This, the guard would know. The second reason is my building isn't actually on Chaowai. It's one full city block south. A smaller street and a 30 story building, Kuntai, is between me and Chaowai. So good luck trying to find me by address. Mapquest would fart. Now onto the name. Chaowai is short for Chao Yang Men Wai. I don't actually know what Chao Yang means. Strangely enough it's the same name as my wife but the characters and tones are different. For that matter, I don¡¯t really know what my wife's name means either except for the Yang part. But, hold on, I know all about the Men and the Wai part. Once there was a city wall around Beijing and every so often along this city wall were gates for people to pass thru. The wall itself was torn down in the 1950s to build a road called the second ring road. The road itself has since turned into a new type of wall, one that goes in the direction of traffic. But I digress. The word for gate is Men, hence the name Chao Yang Men describes the location where the Chao Yang gate once was. Now, onto the Wai part. Simple enough. Wai means "outside" as in outside of the wall. (laowai, are what foreigners are called, meaning old outsider). So a building on Chaowai means a building outside of the Chao Yang Men gate. Moving on. Da means big. Jie means street. So Chao Wai Da Jie, means the main street outside of Chao Yang Men. The word Nei means inside, so Chao Nei Da Jie, is the same street on the inner side of the second ring road. Make sense? If not, check your brain at the door. Ok, moving on to advanced lessons. A block north there is a street called Chao Wai Bei Da Jie. Can you figure out the Bei? What can I say, you are a genius. Bei is north. Anyway, the names go on like this with direction and size variations. North, south, small, large, outer, inner. So, the small street to the south would be Chao Wai Nan Xiao Jie. Nan being south and Xiao being small. The final trick is written Chinese doesn't have spaces ¨C go figure ¨C so often the street names run together as in Chaowaidajie. Got it? Now you are ready for Beijng.