LARA DA GENOVA
LARA FROM GENOA
At Empress Elisabeth's tomb in Vienna's Imperial Crypt
Lara's spelling of Sissi with a double s indicates that she is well acquainted with Ernst Marischka's Sissi films starring Romy Schneider from the years 1955 to 1957, in whose titles this spelling was introduced. The historical spelling is Sisi with one s in the middle.
Poor Romy Schneider had to flee to France in order to escape the permanent fixation on the Sissi image and be able to become a serious actress.
These kitsch films can only be endured here in Austria with a healthy dose of ironic distance. In China, however, they are very popular with young girls and very many take the name Sisi or Sissi as a nickname at university. My Chinese stepdaughter, who is now 35 and has two children, actually has a beautiful given name that means "clever and beautiful". But she will probably not get rid of her nickname Sisi for the rest of her life.
However, the spelling of her nickname in the commonly used pinyin transcription is Xixi. The reasons for this are too complicated to explain here. But the name of the Chinese dictator Xi Jinping, for example, is pronounced like See Gin Ping.
LARA DA GENOVA
LARA FROM GENOA
At Empress Elisabeth's tomb in Vienna's Imperial Crypt
Lara's spelling of Sissi with a double s indicates that she is well acquainted with Ernst Marischka's Sissi films starring Romy Schneider from the years 1955 to 1957, in whose titles this spelling was introduced. The historical spelling is Sisi with one s in the middle.
Poor Romy Schneider had to flee to France in order to escape the permanent fixation on the Sissi image and be able to become a serious actress.
These kitsch films can only be endured here in Austria with a healthy dose of ironic distance. In China, however, they are very popular with young girls and very many take the name Sisi or Sissi as a nickname at university. My Chinese stepdaughter, who is now 35 and has two children, actually has a beautiful given name that means "clever and beautiful". But she will probably not get rid of her nickname Sisi for the rest of her life.
However, the spelling of her nickname in the commonly used pinyin transcription is Xixi. The reasons for this are too complicated to explain here. But the name of the Chinese dictator Xi Jinping, for example, is pronounced like See Gin Ping.