FAQ about our "foreign exchange student"

Frequently asked questions about the eagerly anticipated arrival of our "foreign exchange student"

1. Foreign exchange student?
In the last couple weeks of the pregnancy, we were telling people how it felt like we were waiting for a foreign exchange student to arrive and didn't know how much longer it was going to take for the student to get a visa. At the hospital, our student was given this passport:

After a few non-trivial border crossings*, we were all reunited safely at home two weeks later, and we've been enjoying the process of learning what we each have to teach each other.

*To read about the "border crossings," go to:
http://for-sharing.blogspot.com/2011/03/border-crossings.html

2. Name?
Joel oolee Woolf
傅悟理

Names are not Peter’s strong suit, so one time he groggily answered this question with the following: It’s 4 letters long. It’s a common name with an extra letter added on the end. We’ve been calling him the “wee one.” Oh, yeah, his name is Joel.

Leeann on the other hand would be listening to someone talking and hear them say the name Joel and find herself thinking “Joel who?” Fortunately, more time getting used to the name Joel has resolved these issues. ☺

3. Why Joel?
It’s the only name that we both liked (both in terms of male and female names...we would’ve really been hard pressed to come up with a name quickly enough for the birth certificate folks if we needed a female name).

Another reason is because our friend named Joel really likes the story of someone with a surname of Cy that lost his horse (this story will be explained in the next paragraph). We had planned on giving Joel a Chinese name of Cy Own. But, when we told Joel’s maternal grandparents this, we learned that Own means old man and that it’d be quite strange to name someone “Old Man Cy.” They suggested Oolee as an alternative. We liked how well this alternative captured some of the essence of the Old Man Cy story in a much more aesthetically pleasing Chinese name for his middle name.

4. What’s the Old Man Cy story?
The following link provides several versions of the story:
http://www.noogenesis.com/pineapple/Taoist_Farmer.html

5. Why are you spelling his middle name “oolee”?
The pinyin version of Joel’s middle name is wu4 li3. When Leeann’s father told us about the name they had come up with, he proposed Woolee since that included part of Peter’s last name and Leeann’s first name. We decided having the “l” sandwiched between two pairs of vowels seemed more fun, and like with oolong tea, the “oo” would result in a more accurate pronunciation for those who aren’t well versed in pinyin. When sending an email to a friend, Peter’s iPhone automatically capitalized the other parts of Joel’s name, but not “oolee.” So, that’s how we happened upon leaving the middle name lowercase and decided it had more pleasing symmetry this way.

6. What does his Chinese name mean?
傅 fu = teacher
悟 oo = to comprehend, to become aware, to realize
理 lee = truth

7. Pictures? Videos?
Selected photos:
http://for-sharing.blogspot.com/search/label/photos

Unabridged photos and videos taken by Joel's maternal grandparents, Jessa and Janet Fu:
http://joel.wulfenfoo.org
password: Woolf