Farewell the red soldiers

LONG gone are the days when Chinese parents often chose such names as Hongbing (Red Soldier), Aihua (Love China) or even Kangmei (Anti America) for their children. （1）They are still limited by the custom of using no more than two Chinese characters for given names. But growing numbers now prefer to choose highly obscure ones to ①the common phenomenon, given a ★paucity[1] of surnames, of ★bestowing[2] a name already used by countless others. The police, however, have plans to stop this.

The problem is that commonly used software for inputting Chinese characters, including that used by police departments responsible for ②identity cards (which every Chinese must carry), cannot ③very rare characters. In China, the usual way of writing a character on a computer is to ④its pronunciation using Roman letters, then choose from a list of possible options (most characters have many ★homonyms[3]). A rare character might not ⑤up on the list.

The tens of millions of Chinese with rare characters in their names （2）have long suffered the consequences, experiencing problems with everything from buying airline tickets to opening bank accounts. A Chinese graduate student says none of her examination certificates has ever ⑥her full name, Chen Minqian. The rare “min” character, a poetical term for “autumn”, has been represented by zeros or ★asterisks[4]. Many computers once had problems generating the name of Zhu Rongji, China's former prime minister,⑦to his “rong” character, which is an unusual variant of a character meaning “smelt”.

For the police all this has become a particular problem with the introduction in 2004 of new identity cards with ⑧microchips. Rather than ⑨better software, a senior police official has announced that the answer is to ban problematic characters.

（3）Reaction has not been entirely positive. One Chinese newspaper ⑩that the new regulation would “simply be for the convenience of the police” rather than for the good of the public. A government adviser was quoted in another as saying that the “right of citizens to use characters freely” should be respected. （4）The “old hundred surnames”, as ordinary citizens are often described in Chinese, would agree.

[QUIZ]

1. Fill in each blank with an appropriate form of each following verb. One verb can only and must be chosen once.（将下列动词的适当形式填入文中空白处，每个单词只可并且必须使用一次。）

①handle, ②get, ③show, ④complain, ⑤issue, ⑥avoid，⑦embed, ⑧enter, ⑨thank, ⑩record

[NOTES]

1. paucity n.

less than is needed of something缺少，缺乏 [= lack]

e.g. a paucity of information缺乏信息

2.bestow v.

to give someone something of great value or importance 把（有价值的或重要的东西）赠予某人常用bestow something on/upon somebody 形式e.g. honours bestowed on him by the Queen王后授予他的荣誉

3.homonym n.

a word that is spelt the same and sounds the same as another, but is different in meaning or origin. For example, the noun 'bear' and the verb 'bear' are homonyms 同音异义字或词；同形异义字

4.asteriskn.

a mark like a star (*), used especially to show something interesting or important星号（可作动词用，加星号）

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