- Mei... ko... tyan...
Tracing the scratchings filled with ink with his finger, after a fashion Chipp could make out three hieroglyphs carved on a card.
H'm. Yet the japanese Hiragana is a thousand times easier and plainer. And the Chinese seem to accept nothing more but their Kanji. And they like craming a whole paragraph into one squiggle too much.
These their hieroglyphs look somewhat like... houses made of matches. But if it is difficult to make such house - to resolve a hieroglyph into familiar syllables as it turned out is not easier. So Chipp congratulated himself and even felt some rush of pride in his linguistic ordeals.
- What's a "meikotyan"? - he told Jam sitting at the table.
Oh, and what so special was in that piece of paper, indeed? A summoning spell of a fearsome and baleful chinese demon? It was worth seeing how the clip changed her countenance, how she leaned (rather, impetuously floped) to him across the table and cop the card with squiggles.
- How did it get to you? - Jam muttered to herself something sounds like "kaisuda!" and crumpled the card. And since it was made of thick paper, she swiftly clenched and unclenched her fingers once or twice, - I did order new business cards, why we've got some old...
- Business cards? So you are "Meiko Tyan", aren't you? - Chipp raised his eyebrow, - It is your real name, isn't it?
- It was. In the Colony, - answered Jam briefly, locking her fingers on her nape, bending over the accounting book and pretending as if income and expenses of her restaurant now interests her more than anything else.
- And what about "Kuradoberi Jam"?
Bother. Her family name is not only a jaw-breaker, moreover now it turns out that it's unreal.
- Oh, they are the same, - told Jam columns of figures, scratched her eyebrow by the eraser end of a pencil and wrote something down in the book finely, - It just sounds different, that's all. Asians say "Kuradoberi nuishi", Europeans say "Miss Cloudberry". What do you care?
- I don't care, yeah. "Ku-ra-do-be-ri Jam" and "Mei-ko Tyan"... You know, the latter is easier to articulate. And it suits you somehow more.
The girl thrusted the pencil behind the round barrette with a sharp movement, in the manner of a wooden stud, and casted her head up from the book.
Suits more? Oh, sure. All she heard in the Colony was: "Bear your family name Tyan like the most precious treasure, clean it with the five virtues - and make your most important advantage of it, Meiko. Wherever you are - don't you dare to demean yourself and Tyan family.
The time comes - and you will grace your family name with your husband's name, as sonorous and proud. Do you remember, that the main thing for a good wife is the duty and the gratitude, the requital to your husband and his parents, Meiko? If you marry a bird - you must fly behind it. If you marry a dog - you must follow it everywhere wherever it runs. If you marry a clod - you must sit near it and preserve its peace".
An unenviable fate awaited Meiko Tyan, remained vegetate in the Colony, what can be said. Well, the headpiece Jam Kuradoberi had done everything promptly and properly. Now nobody will be able to foist birds, dogs or clods on her as husbands. And Jam will admire her husband's parents on only if it really is something to admire them on, and she will serve herself and only herself.
- "Meiko Tyan" was good enough for my family. "Jam Kuradoberi" is good enough for me. And what a pity it is, that you, Zanuff, weren't asked, - the girl tried to grin causticly as possible, - what and how is good enough for you.
Zanuff shrugged philosophically in response. Such luxury is not available to everyone in life, that's that: to quarrel with one's family to pieces and tatters about a name.
For that matter, he doesn't remember at all, that once he had a normal family.
Author's notes: 1) "Méi Guojiàng" (chin.), "Kuraudoberījamu" (jap.) and "Cloudberry Jam" (en.) - it has the same meaning in different languages - ... um, "cloudberry jam" x) (and you should ask creators of GG why the neck they need to name a character for the Swedish pop-group xDD) So Jam is a Chinese. For what reason she need to excel with her family name so much - I hope, you have already understand ;) P.S. of course, "Meiko Tyan" is a misrepresented form of Chinese "Méi Guojiàng", and I'm still not sure that it's correct.
2) "kaisuda" - "gosh!" (chin.)
3) "nuishi" - "Miss" (chin.)
4) A sentence about a marriage, a bird, a dog and a clod is the stable formula in the Chinese culture.
5) Actually, a woman in the Chinese society had been deprived of civil rights, for a long time... if I understood correctly, of course.