James Ng: Hello. My name is James Ng. I'm an illustrator from Hong Kong. Ng is spelled N-G but pronounced as I-N-G. It is a Cantonese last name and Cantonese is dialect of Chinese, and is a native language of Hong Kong. Ng is actually the English way to pronounce the last name, because the tone in Cantonese is not in the English language. The Cantonese way and the real way to pronounce my last name is Mm.

So the real way to say my name is James Mm. I know it sounds like I just grunted after I said James but Mm is a lot more audible when you hear it in the context of other Cantonese words. I don't know why Mm is pronounced as Ng in English, but maybe because my ancestors got tired of people pronouncing their names wrong, and they got together and decided a new way for non-Cantonese speakers to say it.

I'm completely fine with both ways of saying my name and I usually introduce myself as James Ng to English speakers because it's easier for them to say it or even hear it.

A funny little story about my name. When I moved to Canada when I was six, on the first day of school a local boy trying to befriend me asked, "What's your last name?" I said, "Mm." He didn't hear me at all.

"Sorry, come again?" I replied louder, "Mm." He was still confused. "Uh, no. What's your last name?" At this point I was getting nervous in front of the class and with a whole group of kids looking at me. I wasn't really fluent in English at that time either, so I just answered, "I don't know." Thankfully, Canadians are so friendly and me and the boy still became friends.

So James Mm or James Ng. Doesn't really matter to me. I'll answer to both.