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consider the first character to be partly made up of the character for ghost.' This was thus seen by many as a ghost knocking at the door of Hong Kong. It was certainly not auspicious. The second 'Ngai' can be seen by wary Chinese as representing the Chinese character for 'danger' Consequently, on his return in 1987, to solve the problem Sir David's name was changed to Wai Yik-shun. This means, 'to defend and protect with faith and trust.' All this changing of names, although generally regarded with some amusement by many Westerners, is taken very seriously by most Chinese. Changing given names is by no means uncommon among Chinese although they do not normally change surnames (Jones, 1997;73).
More of humour
It has been said, if you want to educate a person in the culture and customs of a country you must start with his or her grandmother. Yet Raybon Kan, an ethnic Chinese who performs under the title of Comedy Fu, was born and grew up north of Wellington, New Zealand (Green, 1998). He works as a stand-up, Chinese 'Kiwi' comedian. This lawyer turned funnyman speaks fluent, colloquial Cantonese, but only with his parents who understand limited English and run a take-away. It is something to come on stage in a White community, with a Chinese face in a classic, rural white-bloke tradition, with an act where about one-quarter focuses on his native origins, racial stereotypes, and being an 'underdog' and a 'victim' (Little, 1998). Humour can of course be 'learned.' In fact in one month, in rugby-loving New Zealand, more went to see Comedy Fu perform than watched the Auckland Warriors in action.
Another act was put on by Pui-fan Lee (note surname and given names reversed in western fashion), a stand-up comic in Short, Fat, Ugly and Chinese, at the Fringe Club in Hong Kong, in 1994. As a Chinese girl born in Birmingham, her performance consisted of immigrant Chinese culture and indigenous British values intertwined, interlarded with farcical growing-up encounters in England. And when she lapsed into a broad Brum accent the Birmingham folk who were there loved it. The key is pronunciation. He or she who speaks with a foreign accent is a foreigner. The audience did not care what colour their peer was. The important point was that she spoke broad Brum. Accent conveys acceptance. She was one of them.