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Is Han Tzu related to Han Qing-Jao? The family name is the same, so I wondered if Han Tzu were an ancestor of Qing-Jao's.

-- Submitted Anonymously

OSC REPLIES: - September 4, 2000

Pure coincidence. By the time I was writing Xenocide, I had forgotten that I had given Hot Soup the "real" name Han Tzu. I named Han Fei-Tzu in Xenocide from the name of a real Confucian philosopher from Chinese history. Then I named his daughter for the poet Li Qing-jao -- but since her father's name was Han, her name became Han Qing-jao. Not till years later did someone remind me that Hot Soup also had the very common name Han. (And the word "Han" also is the term for "true Chinese," so it has a useful double meaning in Xenocide, though I didn't know that, either, when naming Hot Soup. His name was chosen because I liked the nickname and Han Tzu was the closest name that sounded Chinese to me ...)

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