WTF?!

I lived my whole life thinking that my Chinese name is pronounced as shi2, but Lu proved me wrong (or semi-wrong, or not wrong at all) yesterday. Okay maybe I should clarify it to be, Lu introduced a new pronunciation to my name that may or may not be 100% official. The sound he introduced is chi3. It’s stated in 1999 edition of Cihai (the big ass dictionary used as an official guidance in China). Honestly speaking, shao shi doesn’t sound like a girl’s name. It’s sad enough that I’m shao shi, but being called shao chi is just simply unacceptable! It sounds so so bad.. I can hear my silent scream: I’m a freaking girl!!

Several years ago, maybe 8, maybe 10, I need to varify my Chinese name at the customs because they don’t even have my name in their workstation database. They’d call help desk support to confirm that my Chinese passport is “correct”. Some years later, I was able to find this one Chinese input system that has my name, obviously back then it’s shi2. Nowadays I use Sogou Pinyin and my name is shi2. But Lu pointed out that if you use the Chinese Pinyin Input on Linux, they only have chi3 and not shi2. I also checked various online sources. Not many sites list the definiton of my name, since it is so rare, but the ones that do have it, some have shi, some have chi, and one site listed both.

I’m so confused right now.. 姼?

PS – Not to mention I bet with Lu and now I’m one cookie down =(