I asked my violin teacher, Mrs Masako, about my Japanese name and if Reika is an accurate translation of my name from the Chinese characters. It turns out that in terms of the meaning of the Chinese characters, Reika is an accurate translation. However, Japanese people will not be able to translate Reika to my Chinese name. There’s different characters if I want to translate my Chinese name to Japanese in terms of the pronunciation. In fact, she also tried to translate it in the traditional characters (the one that looks like Chinese characters but is actually Japanese), it actually means prosperity and wealth. The characters will still be able to translate back to my Chinese name.

Hmm… So I was in a dilemma earlier which one to use. Should I be known as beautiful flower or prosperity? Haha. Both are good for me personally. In the end, I decided to just stick to Reika since Sakura also means a type of flower – cherry blossoms.

So now my online name is both Sakura and Reika. Or Sakura Reika. Haha. Call me Reika!