Cho Chang
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Cho Chang (born 1979) is a fictional character in J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter book series. She is a Ravenclaw student and a year older than Harry. She is described as being a short, very pretty girl with long, black hair. She appears to be very popular as she always seems to be followed by a large group of friends. Cho plays Seeker for the Ravenclaw Quidditch team, and her favourite professional Quidditch team is the Tutshill Tornadoes. Her name seems to imply East Asian descent, very likely Chinese or Korean.
Cho was played by Katie Leung in the fourth Harry Potter movie, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. Leung will reprise the role in the fifth movie, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.
Cho is Harry's first crush and romantic interest, although things don't work out between them.
Harry first meets Cho in his third year during a Gryffindor-Ravenclaw Quidditch match, in which they play Seeker against each other. He notices that she is a "very pretty girl," which makes his stomach "feel funny," but other than exchanging a few looks during the game, the two of them do not interact.
During Harry's fourth year , his crush on Cho develops further. They exchange greetings at the Quidditch World Cup, and he later works up his courage and asks her to be his date to the Yule Ball. However, Cedric Diggory, one of the other champions of the Triwizard Tournament, has already asked Cho out, and the two of them end up dating until Cedric is murdered by Peter Pettigrew on Lord Voldemort's orders at the end of the book. Nonetheless, Cho is still kind to Harry: for example, she refuses to wear one of Draco Malfoy's "Support Cedric Diggory/Potter Stinks" badges, a fact for which Harry is grateful.
At the beginning of Harry's fifth year , Cho surprises him by seeking him out several times and attempting to have a conversation. Unfortunately for Harry, these encounters do not go well at all. The first time she comes by, she finds him covered with Stinksap that was accidentally let off by Neville Longbottom's mimbulus mimbletonia, and the second time she tries to talk with Harry, she ends up arguing with Ron Weasley about Quidditch teams. On the third try, when she happens to enter the Owlery while Harry's there, she defends Harry to a suspicious Argus Filch, and Harry feels pretty good about it.
When invited, Cho (who brings along her fellow Ravenclaw friend, Marietta Edgecombe) joins Dumbledore's Army, against the advice of her parents who wish for her to remain on Dolores Umbridge's good side. Cho joins because she is determined to fight against Voldemort after what happened to Cedric in the previous year. As a DA student, however, she has her ups and downs. At first she gets nervous and messes up her spells when Harry is nearby; later though, she is able to conjure a corporeal Patronus in the shape of a swan. Cho also had sworn to avenge Cedric's death. It was one of the main reasons as to why Cho joined Dumbledore's Army.
Cho initiates a kiss with Harry under some mistletoe shortly before Christmas, and on St. Valentine's Day they go on a date in the all-wizard village of Hogsmeade, but Cho's increasing emotional instability over the death of Cedric, her unfounded jealousy over Harry's friendship with Hermione Granger (who, ironically, tried to advise Harry on how to handle other girls), and Harry's overall inexperience with girls sours the experience.
When Marietta betrays the DA, she is afflicted by the hex performed by Hermione on the piece of parchment, signed earlier by all members of the DA. The hex makes purple pimples spell "SNEAK" across her forehead and they prove to be impossible to remove. When Harry scorns Marietta for the betrayal and Cho defends her, irate at what she considers Hermione's "dirty trick", Harry and Cho's relationship cools considerably.
After the death of Sirius Black, Harry realises that his feelings for Cho have ended. At the end of Harry's fifth year, Ginny Weasley reveals that Cho is dating her ex-boyfriend, Michael Corner. Harry's only reaction is to note that finding out she was now seeing someone else "did not hurt at all."
Cho makes only one very brief appearance in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince . Harry catches a glimpse of her during the ride on the Hogwarts Express but she hides back in her compartment with Marietta. Harry later mentions in a conversation with Ron that the two of them just "fell apart."
Possible Etymology of the Name
Though some have criticised that "Cho Chang" is a nonsensical stereotype of an East Asian name, it is worth noting that the vast majority of J.K. Rowling's character names have stereotypical ethnic connotations, employ hidden jokes, or use alliteration. For example, "Igor Karkaroff" is a stereotypical Slavic name, "Seamus Finnigan" is a stereotypical Irish name, and even "Harry Potter" is a stereotypical English name. The difficulty in the case of Cho is that it is impossible to precisely pinpoint her ethnic origin from her name: even though the surname Chang (張/张/장) is most commonly found in China or Korea, there are no common given names that sound like "cho" in either of these countries. In fact, "Cho" is also a common Korean surname (조) and it is possible that, not being very familiar with East Asian languages or traditions, Ms. Rowling simply created a character using two surnames, not realising that she was committing this mistake.
In Chinese translations of the Harry Potter novels, Cho's given name is 秋, "Autumn", pronounced "qiū" ("chiou") in Mandarin and "chāu" ("chow") in Cantonese. Since the action takes place in the United Kingdom and Hong Kong was under British control for most of the 20th century, it would make 'historical' sense for Cho to be of Cantonese ancestry. Incidentally, the actress who portrays Cho in the movies, Katie Leung, is also of Cantonese ancestry.
There is also an interesting discrepancy between the Simplified and Traditional Chinese translations of the books. In the Traditional Chinese versions, used in Taiwan and Hong Kong, Cho's name is written as "張秋" ("Chang" first), since historically Chinese names are written with the family name first, followed by given names. However, in the Mainland Chinese version the name is written as "秋·张" ("Chang" last), which is a peculiar translation, since the middle dot is normally applied to transcribe non-Chinese names, where it is used to separate the given names, coming first, from the surname, coming last. It is possible that the Mainland translator's goal was to emphasise the fact that Cho Chang, while ethnically Chinese, is nonetheless British by birth or citizenship.
The Mainland Chinese version, when read in Cantonese, sounds close to the Cantonese word for "frustrating", which somehow fits Cho Chang's character in the books. In addition, when pronounced with a different tone in Mandarin, Cho ("qiū") sounds close to "qiú", which means ball (球). This is a clever pun on Cho's role as the Ravenclaw seeker, though it is unclear whether these puns are intentionally placed there by translators, or are just mere coincidences.
"Cho" also means "butterfly" in Japanese (蝶), but since the surname "Chang" is not found among ethnic Japanese, it is probably just a coincidence. In the translations, her name is given as "Chō Chan" (チョウ・チャン), and the fact that her last name is not spelled as "Changu" (チャング), which would be more common for Western names ending in -ng (e.g. "Rowling" becomes ローリング, "Rōringu"), suggests that the translator considered the name to be of Chinese or Korean origin.
"Cho Chang" is also the name of a consonant (ช) in the Thai alphabet, though the way it is pronounced is rather different from the way it is written in Latin characters. The meaning of the letter – "elephant" – is also doubtfully well-suited for a young girl.
References
- [HP3]
- [HP4]
- [HP5]
- [HP6]
- [Philippine News Article on Cho Chang]
- [Harry Potter in Chinese, Japanese, and Vietnamese]
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