So re: name discourse, I should say that I do in fact have a "Chinese name" that is, in the most technical sense, my "real birth name" (as in I had it before my parents decided on what my name in English would be)

And I don't want people to use it

This is kind of fraught, because there's all this stuff about immigration and assimilation tied up with it

But, essentially, my Chinese name has never been my *legal* name on my birth certificate and it's not on any documents or anything, legally I've always been "Arthur Chu"

A mangled version of my Chinese name is my legal middle name, which I'm fine with people knowing, if only as disambiguation from other "Arthur Chu"s

But my whole life my actual Chinese name has only been used in the context of my parents and my other relatives saying it

Thanks to various indignities associated with going viral, my Chinese name is out there on the Internet

I have had people unexpectedly greet me with it before

It's uncomfortable, it's a form of context collapse, like hearing a childhood nickname from a total stranger

This isn't, I think, particularly unique, nor is it all that big a deal, but it's part of why True Name Discourse is uncomfortable for me (as I'm sure it was for Chuck Lorre getting yelled at about his "real name" by Charlie Sheen)

(FWIW, the people I've found who most reliably "get" this are Jewish people who had "Hebrew school" names -- Chuck Lorre was, in fact, named "Charles" on his birth certificate just like I was "Arthur", even though his "real name" among his older relatives was "Chaim")

Anyway that's my very small personal contribution to this Discourse about "real names" and pseudonyms

I haven't actually had much occasion to use different names in different contexts but everyone from an immigrant culture knows that it's a Thing and that it's personal

I'm very big on Asian representation and on being proud of where I come from but I'd still experience someone *demanding* my "real name" from me or rewriting my life story to use my "real name" as a hugely invasive, presumptuous act