This is the story of Rock and Pebble. Rock and Pebble, like many Chinese, picked an American name--perhaps to sound more Western, or they were given the name by a Western friend or acquaintance. Other 'American' names we've come across so far: Cookie, Bob, Cindy and Kiki.
Rock was our tour guide on our 3-day expedition of Beijing. He told us when we went home we could tell our parents we found a rock that talked in China. He really was our rock for the three days and always had our best interests at heart.
On the first day of the tour (Friday) we were eating lunch and a Chinese journalist asked to sit with us, she worked for one of the local papers and was following around the group of students from Iowa. She introduced herself as Pebble..."like the Flintsones!" she said. Almost instantly, we knew we HAD to introduce Rock and Pebble...it was just too perfect!
It proved futile on the first two days--the Iowa students were sometimes on a different schedule, or Pebble wasn't there--but finally, the opporunity presented itself at dinner Sunday night before we were heading to the Peking Opera. Some of us were trying to figure out the best way to introduce them--obviously, we didn't want to break any Chinese traditions/rules about dating or even introducing people, and we certainly did not want to make Rock or Pebble feel uncomfortable.
But serendipitously, they were standing a few feet away, with their backs to each other. Helen and I went over and tapped Pebble on the shoulder and got Rock's attention.
"Pebble, this is our tour guide, Rock. His name is Rock--like your name is Pebble!"They both looked at each other and smiled. then Pebble said "Is this common to have a stone name?"
We laughed and smiled, and said no.
We took the picture above, and after the opera, Helen saw them chatting. Maybe we have careers as Chinese matchmakers? Possible Rock/Pebble baby names: Sandy, Marble, Granite. Can you think of a better one??
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