5 Things to Know about Shang-Chi: What’s in a Name?

What’s in a name? Plenty. And, particularly in a tonal language like Mandarin Chinese, how does one pronounce it?  When the original comic books came out, Marvel had the rights to Sax Rohmer’s character Dr. Fu-Manchu. There are the Chinese characters I found for “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings” on the Chinese side of Wikipedia on 23 August 2021. 

  1. In the Marvel comic books, Shang-Chi’s father was Fu-Manchu (傅满洲).
  2. For the Marvel Cinematic Universe, a new character 文武 WénWǔ was created.
  3. The Wén (文) means text and Wǔ (武) means military or fierce.
  4. The characters for Shang-Chi are 尚氣 Shàng qì and mean “still” and “air” (or spirit or vital energy)
  5. The name Xialing (夏玲) means Xià (夏) summer and Líng (玲) tinkling.

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