The Beijing News (新京报: XinJingBao) reported on September 15th that 10.3% of people in Beijing are Wangs (王). That's 1.16 millions people: the largest family name in Beijing. I knew very few fellow Wangs, but am proud to be one of them. We Wangs are doing pretty good.
Less reported is how this statistics came about. China has a unique government agency: the National ID Number Inquiry Center (公安部公民身份å·ç 查询æœåŠ¡ä¸å¿ƒ). With just few RMBs, you can check if an ID presented to you is valid or not. The bearer's full name comes back in just few seconds after you make the call, via SMS of course. They jointly produced the report with National Statistics Bureau.
What's the rationale of I feeling cool?
Proliferation of our genes is only natural. After thousands of years, this instinct has evolved to the flourish our communities: family, villages, neighborhood, profession, employer, hobby, or whatever. We like our communities to thrive. We will go very far to make sure of it. It's genetic.
Contrary to communities themselves, their governance is nothing natural and almost purely political. Some of the communities are inclusive, outside members are welcome. Others are exclusive and even hostile to outsider. Human societies spend lots of energy to govern just the membership of communities. You learn a lot about the community observing just from this angle. Check out religions: how can a pagan convert? What rituals? Does it expel (usually by shunning, once in while by killing)?
It appears not at all instinctive for communities to be inclusive. That takes courage, leadership, open-heartedness, and open-mindedness.
For the nation, Wang (王), Li (æŽ), Zhang (å¼ ), Liu (刘), Cheng (陈), in sequence, are the largest 5 last names. I learned that, over thousands of year, Wang is the most popular choice for foreigners to choose as their Chinese family name. The name is associated with royalty and is easy to write. So, openness and inclusion pay off for this community.