My father's name is C. Johnson, but when he showed the chop to one of the Chinese men in Happy Valley where he was assigned, he was told the chop said something more equivalent to "John C Son"... and that it would have been the interpretation since they would have said the last name first in giving it to the shop owner, but put it in the middle on the chop (I think I have the story correct). That seems strange, until you consider how we monogram towels and so on (which has always seemed strange to me too!)...
The Chinese give surname first, and perhaps they thought the son was a geneological thing, not part of the John. And I agree, towel monograms are downright peculiar in their format.
ReplyDeleteI love this!
ReplyDeleteThat makes sense... they might have though he meant "I'm Cee... son of John" so John is the family name/surname, and Cee is the individual name, with son of being a modifier. Anyhoo... it's rather like those Tee shirts people proudly wear with unknown characters that may say "I'm a punk turkey" for all they know...!
ReplyDeleteThe other thing (I'm always on about the colors....) is that as I recall this is a dark marble-y red brown, very cool and earthy. In case you decide to do a color version....
ReplyDeletecp