Recently, household registration offices nationwide have been flooded with people since Tuesday. This is because they are applying to change their name to (Gui Yu) which is the Chinese character for ‘salmon’.
It happens after a particular Japanese sushi restaurant chain that is ‘Akindo Sushiro’ decided to give free meals to anyone with the name. According to the promotion, those with proof of the unusual moniker can receive free meals for their entire table. In addition, those with homophonic names can enjoy a 50 percent discount, while those with at least one homophonic character can receive 10 percent off.
Twenty-eight people had claimed free meals as of 3 pm yesterday while at least 1,000 people had participated in the promotion. The two-day promotion ended on the 18th of March 2021. The report stated, most of the people who changed their names were young people. An applicant must pay for a new identification card and household registration certificate.
As of the late afternoon, New Taipei City and Kaohsiung had 26 people who changed their name to ‘salmon’ while Taichung had 22 and Tainan and Taoyuan each had 14. According to a statement, this incident has prompted Taiwan’s Ministry of the Interior (MOI) to remind the public that they can only change their name three times. Any ‘miscalculation’ will result in the name becoming permanent. Deputy interior minister Chen Tsung-yen also said that this kind of name-change not only wastes time but causes unnecessary paperwork.
In Taichung, a college student surnamed Kuo changed her name to Kuo ‘Salmon Rice Bowl’ to treat her friends, but stated that she plans to change it back tomorrow. A college student said that he also changed his name to ‘Bao Cheng Gui Yu’ which loosely translates to ‘explosive good-looking salmon’.
Sources: Facebook Sushiro Taiwan, BBC, New York Post