Till now, everyone has known me by my wrong surname, my official surname in my identify card is the wrong surname. Surnames are the same as your last name, for those who don’t know. The immigration officers got it wrong when my father was making his identity card. He knew about the mistake but decided not to get them to correct it because he felt that as long as the mandarin version of his name is correct the english one doesn’t matter.
Since I learnt that, I have never felt comfortable knowing that I’m using a surname that doesn’t belong to me. It’s like I’m not a complete person. I’ve been toying with the idea of changing it and recently I’ve been feeling an urgency to do so, not sure why though. I’ve already found out which lawyer can do that for me and the cost as well as the consequences of doing so. Some of my friends are telling me that I’m letting myself be bothered by a trivial matter, but I beg to differ. If one day, you found out that your name’s not your real name, what’ll you do?
I’m in the same thing as you are. Although my father made the desicion when I was born that his surname didn’t sound good with my name, so he changed it to the chinese pronounciation. I’m going to chaneg my surname back to his when I turn 21 but I’m already making little changes now. I don’t think it’s a minor thing. By changing my surname back to his, I feel like I’m actually connected to a family that I have heard so much about and has many people whom I respect even though I’ve never met them. It’s like being accepted back to where you belong.