On me being AWESOME! and the Chinese being cocky

So peeps been asking me what on earth "Joe in Zhongguo" means. Since the vast majority of you have ZERO Mandarin experience, this is a perfection acceptable question, and I apologize for titling this blog such an arcane name. In order to clear up some of the confusion, I offer the lot of you the following explanation:

Let's start with the "Joe" part first. "Joe" comes from the English name "Joseph", which in turn is derived from the Hebrew name "Yosef". "Yosef" has origins in the Bible, and it means "the Lord will increase/add". Basically, this means "God's going to make this dude AWESOME", a definition I really fancy because I, myself, am AWESOME! I appreciate the good name choosing Mom and Dad. You two are the bestest.

Anyways, I put the name "Joe" in the title of the blog because, well, I'm Joe and this blog is about me and I'm AWESOME! Nuff said, right?

Now, let's look at the "Zhongguo" part. "Zhongguo" is the name for China in Mandarin and is written like this - 中国. "Zhongguo" can be split into two parts. The first part is "zhong", written 中. The "zh" is pronounced something similar to an English "j" sound, and the "o" is pronounced something similar to the vowel sound "oh" as in "oh no!". Together, these make the "zho" part sound real similar to my name, "Joe". If you stick a little "ng" sound to the end of "Joe", you get "Joe-ng", which is a good approximation to the pronunciation of "Zhong".

"Zhong" means "middle" or "central" in Chinese. If you look at its character, 中, you will notice that it is written as a rectangle with a line through it, suggesting the concept of "middle".

The second part of "Zhongguo" is "guo", written 国. "Guo" is pronounced just like you would guess, as "gwo". This word is Mandarin for "kingdom" or "nation". Thus, "Zhongguo" literally means "Middle Kingdom", aka, China.

Before you get all like "Wow! Them Chinese a cocky bunch, thinking they the center of the universe!", please keep in mind that back in the day we English speakers did the same thing. You know how Tolkien called his world "Middle Earth" in Lord of the Rings? That's because back in Old English, we called our settled land "Middellaerd" which means… yeah you guessed it… Middle Earth, which = England. Basically, those Chinese guys weren't the only cocky people. They did however continue to call their nation "Middle Kingdom" like 1,000 years longer than English speakers, so I guess they are a bit cockier than we are. It kinda makes sense though. I mean, they did invent paper and fireworks and all that like 10,000 years ago or something...

Anyways, now we all know why I titled this blog "Joe in Zhongguo". It's because I'm AWESOME! and I'm going to China. Sweet.