Question: I have a question about the beautiful actress Zhang Ziyi, who was in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. But in Memoirs of a Geisha, she was called Ziyi Zhang. What gives, and what’s her first name?
Answer: Zhang Ziyi’s first name is Ziyi, but in many Asian cultures it’s traditional to give the surname first. Given that for the bulk of human history, the most important thing you could know about a person — in both the East and the West — was who his or her family was, I’m surprised that this order isn’t the norm everywhere. But in the West, the standard name format is surname last (generally a patronymic — the father’s name) and given name first. Miss Zhang appears to have adopted the Western order as part of her bid for international stardom; Americans especially have a problem with “weird” names. That
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The cultural conundrums of bringing Arthur Golden's popular novel Memoirs of a Geisha to the big screen could make your head spin: The story of Japanese women carrying out an age-old tradition in the 1930s is written by an American, directed by an American, told in English, and stars Chinese and Malaysian actresses. But director Rob Marshall (Chicago) said his priority was to find the right people to tell the story of Sayuri regardless of nationality. That's why his long search for her portrayer took him to Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon's Beijing native Ziyi Zhang.
"I had to find a great star who could carry a film ̵
read more
The cultural conundrums of bringing Arthur Golden's popular novel Memoirs of a Geisha to the big screen could make your head spin: The story of Japanese women carrying out an age-old tradition in the 1930s is written by an American, directed by an American, told in English, and stars Chinese and Malaysian actresses. But director Rob Marshall (Chicago) said his priority was to find the right people to tell the story of Sayuri regardless of nationality. That's why his long search for her portrayer took him to Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon's Beijing native Ziyi Zhang.
"I had to find a great star who could carry a film ̵
read more
