You might have blinked at the recent Party Congress, when the names of the delegates and those voted into office were read out loud in Chinese. Did you not notice, though, that some of those people have names longer than 3 Chinese characters? Stats have it that the longest Chinese name in the PRC from a Chinese citizen of any ethnic race racks up a record 15 characters in length.

For most folks in the Han ethnicity, names often top out at 4 characters -- one of those people works in the 7 O'Clock news and is called "Shangguan Wenqing" (上官文清), as the family name itself is two chars in length (we do have these -- Duanmu, Sima, Ouyang and gang).

The authorities are now thinking of limiting Han ethnic citizens to no more than six characters in length in names. Kind of makes sense at the end of the day to the laowai, who has to contend with different characters, different tones, and this and that. Plus -- the characters you use have to be existing ones -- no new creations allowed! (To a Mac guy, this sounds like bloody murder -- innovation is what keeps us afloat! But I digress...)

Yeah, your Beijingologist still grumpy because of that big new small hole (read it out loud: it kind of makes sense!) in the front of his car... but less grumpy now knowing that Chinese names won't get much longer...