Fu Laoshi
Titles are very important in Taiwanese society. It is incredibly impolite to call someone by their given name, unless you are close friends or colleagues. Even then a nickname might be more common among friends and surname-plus-title among colleagues. Another option is to say the full name: surname + given name.
My Chinese name is Fu Ke-en (傅可恩). My efforts to get people to call me Ke-en generally fail. Generally, I end up getting called either “Mr. Fu” (傅先生）or “teacher Fu” (傅老師). The best I can do now that I am a college professor is to insist on the less formal “teacher” as opposed to “professor” (教授). So, that is how I normally introduce myself: “teacher fu.”
Today, when a colleague introduced me to the owner of her favorite bubble tea stand, the owner asked me how she should address me. I replied, as usual, “teacher Fu” (傅老師). To which she replied: “Oh, Professor Fu. Too bad, you’ll never become a full professor!” The joke being that “Professor Fu” sounds exactly like the term for “associate professor” (副教授). That’s what you get for ordering bubble tea near a university!
Postscript: An interesting exception to the “no given name” rule is among those with greater English proficiency. Such people will use adopted English names even among Chinese-speaking friends.
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Kerim Friedman has more on his site about Dong Hwa University. Take a look at these posts onthe importance of his title and the bureaucracy of the school. February 25, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
At least you have a 3-character name. I got stuck with the name 班達 (ban da–guess why) and I don’t want anyone calling me by the “given name” ’cause they’d probably call me 阿達 (a da, which isn’t exactly complimentary).
That tea stand owner’s got a great sense of humor.. 
Pride shouldn’t get involved in naming affairs.
If you humbly decide you’d rather be called Teacher Fu, then it is no wonder some pleople will mistake you for an average , simple teacher instead of a Professor.
As long as you know your real status, it should be ok 
.
Be magnificent: that woman will be serving bubble tea all of her life.
I intend to blog about my teaching at some point, but for now you can visit my wiki to see the syllabi of my three courses. (The ones with Chinese titles – but the materials are mostly in English.)
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An anthropologist and documentary filmmaker, 
[IMG] Kerim Friedman settles into his new post at Donghwa University : My Chinese name is Fu Ke-en (傅可恩). My efforts to get people to call me Ke-en generally fail. Generally, I end up getting called either “Mr. Fu” (傅先生）or “teacher Fu”