What's in a Name?

I must confess that speaking Chinese is difficult for me. It is partly because I’m still a beginner and shy about using it, and partly because it is embarrassing to have to explain why I don’t speak better Chinese and how my American husband is so good at it. As I got ready to hail a taxi with the kids for the first time by myself, I had sweaty palms and gave myself a quiet pep talk. I opened the taxi door, while the kids waited outside, and asked the driver if he could take us to the school. He didn’t understand me, so I showed him the name of the school on a piece of paper. He said he could take us, so we got in the car. We chatted for a while on the way, and I was feeling pretty good about the experience. We were almost to school when he told me my error. I had asked him to take us to XingMing School, which means full name (first and last) school instead of MingXing School, which means bright star school. The kids are never going to let me forget this. On the flip side, when we were hooking up our internet, the translator asked me to show her my worknet. It took ten seconds of confusion before I understood that she wanted to see our network!