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| Registered: April 7, 2007 |  Posts: 357 |
| | Posted: | | | | I don't know enough peple from other Asian backgrounds so can't speak for them. But from the Chinese speaking countries, I do know quite a few, both as friends/family and as being the secretary of a number of Chinese charities.
Everyone I have asked categorically says they don't write their last name first. They say their first name is their family name and would be insulted by an attempt to change their culture to a western standard.
From people who make their living translating official documents form Chinese into English, examine and lecture others on how to do exactly that you would never transpose first and last name unless the person concerned had already included a western name with that ordering.
I can't say for Japanese, Korean, Thai etc. So maybe they would be as you say but even if they do an Asian only rule would be a one size fits all and wrong and offensive for the biggest producer of asian films.
I accept there is an option to order names but that would result in Chinese people having their names in the correct order only when everyone else is has them ordered back to front so unless it is on a person by person basis it's a red herring.
How do you deal with my other points eg. Many chinese names are a phrase that makes no sense if you mess them around.
This can be easily and non offensively dealt with by changing the field names to family or surname and given names. If that were done we couldn't possibly have to go this route. | | | | Last edited: by Graveworm |
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| Registered: March 13, 2007 | Reputation:  |  Posts: 3,436 |
| | Posted: | | | | Quoting Graveworm: Quote:
Everyone I have asked categorically says they don't write their last name first. They say their first name is their family name and would be insuilted by an attempt to change their culture to a western standard. I would imagine they are referring to the "first name" position wise, which is in fact their family name, hence their surname. Their given name(s) are position wide the last name(s) and are written after that. The definition that xradman is trying to make in this thread is, that First Name per DVD Profiler equals the Given Name(s) and the Last Name equals the Family Name. I live in Taiwan, so a certain amount of language barrier is added, but people here would call their family name the "first name", purely referring to the position where it is when written down. | | | Achim [諾亞信； Ya-Shin//Nuo], a German in Taiwan.
Registered: May 29, 2000 (at InterVocative) |
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| Registered: April 7, 2007 | | Posts: 357 |
| | Posted: | | | | Quoting ya_shin: Quote:
The definition that xradman is trying to make in this thread is, that First Name per DVD Profiler equals the Given Name(s) and the Last Name equals the Family Name.
I live in Taiwan, so a certain amount of language barrier is added, but people here would call their family name the "first name", purely referring to the position where it is when written down. Exactly and in the west we write given name first; so to equate the names is wrong if we want first names = given names why not call the fields that? This all started because it needed to be as credited so it was unambiguous. Now we have the IMO welcome possibility of master database then lets change that to surname family name etc and then as credited first middle and last? |
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| Registered: March 15, 2007 |  Posts: 374 |
| | Posted: | | | | Quoting Graveworm: Quote:
Quoting ya_shin:
Quote:
The definition that xradman is trying to make in this thread is, that First Name per DVD Profiler equals the Given Name(s) and the Last Name equals the Family Name.
I live in Taiwan, so a certain amount of language barrier is added, but people here would call their family name the "first name", purely referring to the position where it is when written down.
Exactly and in the west we write given name first; so to equate the names is wrong if we want first names = given names why not call the fields that? This all started because it needed to be as credited so it was unambiguous. Now we have the IMO welcome possibility of master database then lets change that to surname family name etc and then as credited first middle and last? Are you saying that for the master database you would like to turn the chinese names around, meaning instead of Gong Li you would put Li Gong there ? I think a chinese first name (which is a surname) should remain on the first name position, also in the masterdata base, other wise it would be Li Gong credited as Gong Li, I am afraid that would lead to a lot of confusion, since there are not too many people around that can simply identify by looking at the chinese name what is given name and what is surname. On the other hand: if we decide that last name = surname, then I agree with you and that would be the way ahead. I am still thinking of what to do with the examples that xradman brought up, where HK actors choose to use an english given name. | | | | Last edited: by sugarjoe |
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| Registered: April 7, 2007 | | Posts: 357 |
| | Posted: | | | | Quoting sugarjoe: Quote:
Are you saying that for the master database you would like to turn the chinese names around, meaning instead of Gong Li you would put Li Gong there ?
No at the moment it's obvious to me that first name is a persons first name. I mean for a master database if they want to change things then change the field names to surname first given name etc. | | | | Last edited: by Graveworm |
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| Registered: March 15, 2007 | | Posts: 374 |
| | Posted: | | | | What I see at the moment is that 90% of all chinese names are incorrect in the database, probably because people have taken the names from IMDb where it is shown as given name/surname, while as credited it is mainly surname/given name. | | | | Last edited: by sugarjoe |
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| Registered: April 4, 2007 | | Posts: 882 |
| | Posted: | | | | well, I've read your proposal and checked various Asian movies on my lists to "test" it. IMHO, this is the best solution of the Asian names problem I've ever read on this (or the old) board. To make things short: I'm supporting it  | | | | - Jan |
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| Registered: March 15, 2007 | | Posts: 374 |
| | Posted: | | | | Quoting hydr0x: Quote:
well, I've read your proposal and checked various Asian movies on my lists to "test" it. IMHO, this is the best solution of the Asian names problem I've ever read on this (or the old) board. To make things short: I'm supporting it Which solution do you exactly support? |
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| Registered: April 4, 2007 | | Posts: 882 |
| | Posted: | | | | Quoting sugarjoe: Quote:
Quoting hydr0x:
Quote:
well, I've read your proposal and checked various Asian movies on my lists to "test" it. IMHO, this is the best solution of the Asian names problem I've ever read on this (or the old) board. To make things short: I'm supporting it
Which solution do you exactly support? the one presented in this thread obviously | | | | - Jan |
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| Registered: March 15, 2007 | | Posts: 374 |
| | Posted: | | | | Quoting hydr0x: Quote:
the one presented in this thread obviously Well, actually there have been more than one. Xradman started with his general idea about romanization of chinese/HC actors names, graveworm continued with some more, mainly to change the name fields to given name/Surname in the masterdatabase (is that correct graveworm?) |
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| Registered: April 4, 2007 | | Posts: 882 |
| | Posted: | | | | Just because there have been replies doesn't change what the thread is about, and that's the original proposal. Any general answer to a thread usually refers to the original post, otherwise it would be directed at a specific user or posted along with a quote... | | | | - Jan |
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| Registered: March 15, 2007 | | Posts: 374 |
| | Posted: | | | | Quoting hydr0x: Quote:
Just because there have been replies doesn't change what the thread is about, and that's the original proposal. Any general answer to a thread usually refers to the original post, otherwise it would be directed at a specific user or posted along with a quote... I am afraid I can't follow you. But if you are unable to answer a specific question and instead prefer to give a general lecture about how threads works, well, then I can't really discuss anything with you.  |
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| Registered: March 15, 2007 |  Posts: 131 |
| | Posted: | | | | First of all...
Thank you xradman for your solid and very well documented proposal.
And I agree with the order shoudl follow the last name = family name and first name = given name.
But the problem I see with this, and probably with any solution to this problem...
Is that we will end up using Credited As for almost all movies an actor is in.
So this might become diffcult to read.
For example, in Raising the Red Lantern, the credits will read:
Li Gong (Gong Li) as Songlian
For actors where we use also their english name, we will need to use the Credited As for all their movies.
We will see Jet Li appears in credits as:
Lianjie Jet Li (Li Lianjie) as ....
Or
Lianjie Jet Li (Jet Li) as Danny
As I said... I agree with the proposal, it's just that the "Credited As" field that should be used only for exceptional cases, will now be used everytime an asian actor appears in a movie.
If we reverse the First name = Family name and Last name = given name... Which will be "incorrect" in my mind and bring some more confusion, at least it will remove some "Credited As" usage. Gong Li, ZHang Zi-yi, Chow Yun-fat will all appear without a "Credited As" in most of thier movies. |
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| Registered: March 15, 2007 | | Posts: 374 |
| | Posted: | | | | Quoting tarantino: Quote:
First of all...
But the problem I see with this, and probably with any solution to this problem...
Is that we will end up using Credited As for almost all movies an actor is in.
So this might become diffcult to read.
That is one problem the other would be the knowledge of eastern names, you need to be able to identify what is a given and a surname in Asia, because they could be credited either way. And what is the point having almost all chinese actors twice in the database, one time acc. to western standards (a first name = given name) and the the other way around as credited? | | | | Last edited: by sugarjoe |
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| Registered: March 13, 2007 | | Reputation: | | Posts: 3,436 |
| | Posted: | | | | Quoting tarantino: Quote:
But the problem I see with this, and probably with any solution to this problem...
Is that we will end up using Credited As for almost all movies an actor is in.
So this might become diffcult to read.
For example, in Raising the Red Lantern, the credits will read:
Li Gong (Gong Li) as Songlian Where do you see this...? Unless you have a specialized layout, you should only see the Credited As name and the Role. The Common Name will be hidden. Having to use the Credited As almost on every instance of an actor's appearance is something I also thought about... Quoting sugarjoe: Quote:
That is one problem the other would be the knowledge of eastern names, you need to be able to identify what is a given and a surname in Asia, because they could be credited either way.
And what is the point having almost all chinese actors twice in the database, one time acc. to western standards (a first name = given name) and the the other way around as credited? I think for this problem this Feature Request would be a big help to overcome it... Other than that it will be a matter of correcting entries... ...and there isn't really all that many Asian actors who are working in the USA now... | | | Achim [諾亞信； Ya-Shin//Nuo], a German in Taiwan.
Registered: May 29, 2000 (at InterVocative) |
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| Registered: March 15, 2007 | | Posts: 131 |
| | Posted: | | | | Quoting ya_shin: Quote:
Where do you see this...? Unless you have a specialized layout, you should only see the Credited As name and the Role. The Common Name will be hidden. Sorry, my bad. I tought the Online collection was also showing the common name. |
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