Brian D Chase <bdc@world.std.com> wrote:
> I couldn't help but think this poor fellow must endure a large amount of
> grief with such a name.
   Thanks for pointing this out to me. Being a Russian, I'm not as good at
word play as you are. NOW I finally know why he changed his first name to
Alan on his new job...
   You have to understand, though, that in a campus environment you have to
get used to working with people whose race and national origin is different
from your own. One difficulty with people of Chinese origin is that their
native names are usually unpronounceable in English or Russian. Before the
changes that took place in the summer of 1997, our Computer Engineering and
Science department had two technical staff members, whose names (as known
to the department) Long Wang and Sherry Li. For one, Sherry's native name
is Xiaojuan. I have no prejudices whatsoever against Chinese people (those
whom I meet at CWRU are highly intelligent) or their names, but I simply
have no idea how to pronounce "Xiaojuan" in English or Russian. And I'm
sure that I'm not alone in this. This is probably what has made Ms. Li
decide to become Sherry. As for the name "Long Wang", I don't know whether
it's a transliterated and adapted version of his native name or simply a
nickname like Sherry. In either case, I'm sure that Mr. Wang was absolutely
unaware of the "other" implications of the string "Long Wang" that are more
obvious to Americans.
   In the summer of 1997 both Long and Sherry left for other jobs. Our
department had to wait until 1-DEC-1997 until Long's position was filled by
Jeff Goodin, while with Sherry the situation was different. Her office was
taken by me almost immediately (Long was still there actually as he left a
little later), and her job pretty much followed in mid-September 1997 (note
that partially replacing Sherry is not my primary function though). And so
it was until I came across some 8" SMD Winchesters that were used by CES
when Long Wang was the system manager. I had some questions about them that
I thought Long could answer. I asked Paul Stephan for Long's new phone
number and E-mail address, and then I learned that his name at his new job
is Alan Wang. I was in an awkward situation. Normally when a person changes
his name he wants people to use his new name, but everyone on our campus
knows Long and no one has ever heard of Alan. For the purposes of CWRU his
name will always be Long Wang, whatever his current name and job are. So I
started calling him Mr. Wang. It seemed to me from our conversation that he
preferred to be called Long when CWRU is concerned, and so I went back to
what I had always been used to.
   I keep referring to him as Long Wang since, although I'm very glad that
he has found a new job where he can make better use of his talents as a
material scientist, it has nothing to do with system management,
programming, engineering, or hacking. It has no meaning to me. The only
meaning that this poor fellow has to me is as Long Wang, System Manager
Emeritus of CES, even though system management has never been his primary
profession.
   
   Sincerely,
   Michael Sokolov
   Phone: 440-449-0299
   ARPA Internet SMTP mail: sokolov@alpha.ces.cwru.edu