Simu Liu – the actor playing Shang–chi talks openly about his struggle regarding Asian American names [shang–chi]

Shang-chi and the legend of the ten rings will be released this Friday where an Asian American can be seen living in San Francisco while being trained as an assassin since childhood by the renowned ten rings army.

The role of Asian American gets more complicated as he is leading a double life in the movie – Shaun and Shang-chi.

Still don’t get what we are talking about? Well, this is the small synopsis of what to expect in the next installment of Marvel’s superhero movie!!!

The legend of Shang chi will be played by an amazing Asian American actor Simu Liu who stated that the story of Shang li is very close to his own life.

He said many Asian Americans can easily relate to the character of Shang li who led a double life with a western name of Shaun.

Simu Liu stated that “their Asian names are seen as too convenient while an American one is meant to better suit English speakers.”

Liu stated that it came with a lot of patience and time that he started to appreciate and acknowledge his Asian name and did not want it to be changed or have a more western edge. Simu said “growing up I would’ve given anything to change my name to something a little bit more anglicized. I gave my parents a lot of crap and asked “why didn’t you just name me Steve or Tommy?”

Another famous actress of Hollywood who can also be seen in the next marvel sequel Michelle Yeoh – playing the role of an aunt of Shang chi stated that she can relate to what Simu Liu has expressed. She said she crumbled under the societal pressure of changing her Asian descent name to a more western name. She let go of her Chinese name Yeoh Choo-Kheng and adopted a more westernized name of Michelle Yeoh.

“I only adopted the name Michelle when I got into the film industry, because my producer said at that time, no one is going to be able to say your name.” she said I exclaimed and said “what do you mean they can’t say it? It’s yeoh as in yo, that’s easy, right? Choo as in ‘Choo Choo train’ and kheng as in ‘king’. Why can’t you put those three words together?”

But alas, the world doesn’t work the way Michelle wanted in those days and she ended up adopting the screen name of Michelle just to get work in the industry, and today she is one of the most established Asian American actors of her time.