Sera Monastery Lhasa, Tibet
"Charmaine" is a difficult name to pronounce, so I've been given alternate names that sound like my real name to ease the confusion and mouth-garble.

In Chinese, my name is "Xia Ming", pronounced "siyah-ming". Its literal translation is "bright summer" and the characters are:

夏明

The second character with the two ladders means "bright", separately they translate as 'sun' and 'moon'.

In Nepali, my name is "Sarmila" (Mero nam Sarmila-ho) meaning "bright, smiling, happy".

And lastly! Today, I was meditating at a Buddhist center where I read books on hatha yoga (the school of yoga that I practice within). I learned that "Hatha" means "The Science of Will" and broken down, ha means 'sun' while tha means 'moon'. Together, it also means 'bright' - in practicing Hatha, you create a bright mind and capable body.

What an interesting connection!

(I've also forgotten to mention that I've been told that I look Nepali -- more specifically, ethnic Mongolian. In China, I was told I looked Singaporean, Chinese, "ethnic minority", and a host of others)