Your Name And My Name or Nickname In Chinese (Mandarin): Ann, Happy and Lucky

Problem
How do I get my name translated into Chinese? Years ago I paid to have my name written in Chinese in calligraphy at a tourist spot. I was upset when I had it done again and found a totally different drawing.

Answer
However, a friend told me that since the name could be written many ways, both of the artists' works were equally valid.

Angela has no direct translation. I asked somebody to give me a translation of Angel. I didn't like the sound and it was not memorable.

In Singapore in Orchard Road, the equivalent of London's Oxford Street, the main department store complex is called Ngee Ann city, after the founder-owner. I thought of combining my name with An.

I asked a Grab taxi driver to translate my name. I asked him for a translation of Lucky Ann.

It comes out like this:
Pronunciation (sound)
Sing Onn Ann. (That is easy to remember. Sing on or oon, Ann.)
The spelling is:
XIN YUN AN.

Lucky is a value judgement.

Happy is more of an accurate description.

Happy Ann becomes
Kai Sing An (pronunciation) and the spelling is
KAI XIN AN.

I could be Kai Sing An from Singapore. In a foreign language you have a chance to pick a new name or nickname, and market yourself with any name which brings you luck or makes you happy.

The Ngee Ann City Shopping Mall, located along shopping street Orchard Road, Singapore. (2MP version)
Date	December 2006
Source	Own work
Author	Img by Calvin Teo
Permission (Reusing this file)	CC-BY-SA-2.5, GFDL

Angela Lansbury
Travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.

How To Recognize Tunes in Restaurants and Sing In Tune Using Free Tuning Apps

Problems
1 You hear a song played in a restaurant or shop or even in an elevator (that's an Americanism - the UK we say lift) and want to learn the title.

Answers
Goggle sound or music recognition.
Sometimes one works and the other doesn't in finding the tune. Neither is uniformly better. You just have to try them on while listening to the song - of record a snatch on one device such as a mobile phone and then play it back to a laptop or somebody else's mobile.
My family use two aps

Soundhound

http://evolver.fm/2012/10/10/top-5-apps-for-identifying-songs/

Now you want to sing it in tune:

How to sing in tune using free aps:
One of many such titles on YouTube.
The lady says she has tried half a dozen aps. She recommends this ap which she demonstrates.

It looks like a clock face. The pointers are like an old-fashioned metronome or pendulum and swing about the note on the clock face as you sing. You sing higher or lower and the pointer moves towards a higher or lower note on the scale.
INS tuner


Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer.

Toilets Which Don't Lock - what can you do?

Problems
1 The toilet door doesn't lock
2 The cubicle/ toilet has no lock

Answers
1 Maybe the lock is broken. You have to put your bag on the dirty floor against the door, hang it on the handle, and/or sing loudly to alert anybody outside that you are inside. Maybe the key has fallen out of the lock as the door slammed shut, on to the floor. First try moving the handle in all directions. Does a lever go down, or up? Clockwise or anti-clockwise? Does the knob turn, go clockwise or anti-clockwise, or push inwards and outwards?
2 Wait for somebody else and ask them to guard the door and offer to wait and do the same for them.

Stories
I had trouble with the lock on the disabled toilet in Waitrose in Harrow and Wealdstone. I kept shutting the door, moving the bar, checking if it was locked and fining it pushed open. Somebody else came along and showed me what to do.
The cubicle is designed for wheelchair users. The door opener is not the door closing bar but a push button on the wall.
2 Sometimes there's no lock on the single cubicle. The lock is on the door to the toilet which has a separate basin outside. Why? Extra security for the person in the cubicle. A mother and child could have privacy for mother in the cubicle whilst child or baby in pushchair is in the basin section.
The worst non-locking cubicle door was the one on the mountain in Guylin, China. The cubicles in the Ladies has no toilet. The toilet was the squat type. All the tourists were Chinese who wanted to see me because I was a blonde Westerner and they were all black-haired Chinese. I had to wait until they were all gone. I kept my group waiting and nearly missed my coach.

Tips
If in trouble ask the owner. If you are too shy, or the owner is not around, ask another customers.
Failing all else, stick a note on the outside or under the door. Carry an umbrella. Open it and hold it in front of you, whether in a field or a cubicle with no lock, it give you visual privacy.



Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer.

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Marilyn Monroe's dress on display in Ireland brings back memories of the Sixties

Marilyn Monroe's dress, which she wore to sing, Happy Birthday, to President John F Kennedy, is going to be displayed in kildare, Ireland. The dress is decorated with Rhinestones.It will be auctioned, along with many other items.

Peter Lawford introduced her jokingly as, 'The late Marilyn Monroe'.

You can see her singing on YouTube. (The words are in Wikipedia.) Then two chefs in high white hats carry in a giant cake with candles. Finally, President Kennedy goes on stage and says, "Now I can retire."

She died a few weeks later. She was born and died in Los Angeles. She died age 36. Her birth year and death year are easy to remember with the last two digits reversed, 1926-1962.

He also died, assassinated Nov 22 1963. I've seen it said that some people felt Kennedy's assassination was karma, that he had killed her and therefore he was killed. I've read at least three books on the death of Marilyn Monroe, each equally convincing. If I remember rightly, it's hard to summarise but these are some of the theories:

First, I was convinced by the theory of a Kennedy brother and Peter Lawford both in a car stopped by a policeman in Los Angeles for speeding, secretly seeing her earlier the day she died.

Then the cover-up theory that the autopsy was false, because it claimed no injection marks. Yet an innocent injection mark from something like a vaccination should have been noticed and listed.

Then I was convinced by the idea that two doctors, deliberately ordered to arrive in quick succession but not meeting each other, independently, innocently each gave her half a fatal overdose.

Finally, I was convinced by a video of her housekeeper blaming Marilyn's doctor-cum-psych. The theory toes that he killed her accidentally by injecting into the wrong place when trying to revive her.

If only life was so simple, the true reasons for everything were so quickly revealed, and justice was so quick, that no miscarriages of justice ever took place, and all facts fitted such a neat pattern.

Happy Birthday Saturday May 19 1962. On YouTube.

The dress will be auctioned in Los Angeles, USA in November 2016.
Irish newspapers report on a Marilyn Monroe lookalike appearing to help promote the display. Lonely Planet has a list of sites to see in the USA connected with Marilyn Monroe.

Memorial Flowers
I was disappointed that she has no great memorial grave, just her name and dates on a wall. I recall reading about the flowers placed every year by her husband Joe DiMaggio. For years the donor of the flowers was kept a secret.

Joe
When I read that Joe refused to shake hands with Kennedy, blaming him for Marilyn's death, I immediately thought, that's the person who placed the flowers for her every year. Joe was the man who cares deeply about her, the man who many years after the divorce, the end of the relationship, has still not moved on. Later I learned that my guess was proved right.

The Newbridge cutlery company's museum is named one of the top five attractions by the tourist board. Look at the company's website and you can see lots of dresses. They have memorabilia from Audrey Hepburn, Princess Diana and the Beatles.

Watching all the videos, all sorts of secrets and facts are revealed. What was Marilyn wearing underneath? Nothing. The dress split at the back. You can see the place where it was quickly sewn back together.

Museum of Style Icons (MOSI)
Newbridge Silverware
County Kildare
Ireland

https://newbridgesilverware.com/mosi
https://www.lonelyplanet.com/usa/travel-tips-and-articles/77391
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Happy_Birthday,_Mr._President
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mWaEGH2nImU
http://www.irishmirror.ie/whats-on/whats-on-news/most-significant-exhibition-marilyn-monroe-8295733
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.