Tricia's Musings » Authors

Stephen King on The Hour and surnames in China

Tricia — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 03:43:51 +0000

I was just watching The Hour with George Stroumboulopoulos on CBC. George used to be a Much Music V-Jay, then last year he hosted a US game show or talk show (The One?) that I think failed miserably, but his show “The Hour” is actually pretty cool.

He babbles away about great topics and ends up interviewing some pretty interesting people. I’ve just watched him interview Mia Farrow and now in a minute or two he’s going to be talking with Stephen King.

Just before his Stephen King interview begins he started talking about how common certain names are in the US. Smith of course is the most common name and King is the 30th most common surname. Did you know that in China with it’s population of about a billion people that there are only 100 surnames? There’s something like 97 million Wangs, and 98 million Lee’s and so on!

Hmmm 97 million Wangs. Why doesn’t that line sound quite right? LOL

Can you imagine trying to find someone in a phone book there? George said the Chinese goverment is finally going to allow people to combine last names so their kids could end up with the surname of the mother or father or perhaps a hyphenated surname. Hopefully this will make a few new surnames come into play. They certainly need some!

Now I’m going to watch one of my favorite authors … excuse me for a moment while I hang on to his every word.

A new memoir - Defiance

Tricia — Sat, 25 Nov 2006 04:00:46 +0000

I was just reading about an interesting new book that I think I’m going to buy as it sounds like a good read. It’s called “Defiance” and it’s a true story that has apparently made the KGB and the DHS want to get rid of the author.

The story, written by Alex Konanykhin, a self made tycoon in post-Soviet Russia, talks about how by the age of 25 he’s created and controlled the largest bank in Russia, but that’s where his troubles began.

Apparently the KGB kidnapped him and stole his fortune which led to Alex Konanykhin to make a daring escape and move to the US in 1992. Unfortunately his troubles weren’t over when he moved to the land of opportunity because he ended up having to fight the FBI, INS, and Justice departments in order to hold onto his freedom and his very life.

In this memoir you can read about how the Russian mafia took out a contract on him, and how the US government is still trying to deport him back to his homeland of Russia where he’d likely end up being killed. Alex is only 39 now- so all of this has happened in the last 14 years. He’s already lived through a lot of trouble and it’s not over yet.

On the Book Website you can even read deleted chapters, and look at photos and various documents that are related to the book and what has happened in Alex’ life so far. Yep, I think this a book that I’m going to buy. It certainly sounds interesting to me.