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Google Me, Google You

Posted on: Sunday, 4 February 2007, 09:00 CST

By Richard Chin

I, Richard Chin, am a newspaper reporter and the writer of this article.

But did you know that I'm also a judge in Massachusetts, a Rhodes scholar, a squash pro, a martial arts expert and a male model?

Actually not me, but other people named Richard Chin.

I know this because I engage in an activity that bored, vain, self-centered, insecure people like me are prone to indulge in.

In other words, I Google myself.

In the distorted mirror of Google, I find that my public persona on the Internet is Richard Chin, the writer of such timeless newspaper articles as "Firewood Strikes Chord in New York," and "Pipe Smoking: The Next Retro Indulgence?"

But I also find -- horrors! -- that I'm not alone. There are other Richard Chins out there, scattered across the globe living wildly different and seemingly better lives than me.

Cyberspace seems to be teeming with hyperachiever Richard Chins who all seem to have gotten into better schools, have better jobs, make more money and contribute more to society.

My mother would be proud to call any one of these lawyers, doctors, professors, pro soccer players or rocket scientists her son. Instead she got the author of "Twin Cities Scavenger Hunt Goes 'Frantic.' "

All right, I'll concede there are a few Richard Chins who I feel superior to, like the New York doctor who got his license yanked for some professional hanky-panky.

But does that make me feel better? Oh, no. Heaven forbid if someone mistakes that guy for me.

I know I'm not the only egosurfer of the Internet. My own daughter, for example, informs me that not only is she a high school student, she's also a breast cancer survivor and a CEO.

But how many of you have contacted your digital doppelgangers and asked them, hey, what are you doing with my name?

'Y ou know why I Google myself? Because I want to see how many hits get generated for my books," says Richard Chin, an author from San Jose, and the first Richard Chin I've ever talked to.

Richard is suspicious when I first get him on the phone, especially when I ask him how old he is (59, way older than me). He's worried that I'm trying to steal his identity. Hah. Too late.

According to the Internet, this Richard Chin went to Berkeley, served in the Air Force, was a software engineer who worked on the F-15 fighter jet and became an executive with the Lockheed Missiles and Space Company.

Then he retired at 47 to write self-published novels like "Legacy of Eden" and "Far From Heaven," which center on Enoch, a descendant of Adam and the father of Methuselah.

"Nobody had really written about this Enoch guy," Richard Chin says of his books, which he describes as being in the "Biblical adventure romance" genre.

"There are tons of Richard Chins out there," he advises me. "There are very famous people out there. But I'm not one of them."

Richard Chin says he has found doctor Richard Chins and lawyer Richard Chins on the Web. (But no journalist Richard Chin?)

"Ten years ago, you could not have done this."

Would you rather be one of these other Richard Chins?

"If you do that, you're going to be unhappy," he says.

"In some ways, it kind of motivates me to do more things," he adds. "In other ways, it's no big deal. There's always going to be more successful people than you, or less successful."

He says he gets a lot of calls from debt collectors trying to track down deadbeat Richard Chins, something that never happens to me.

"There are Richard Chins that are giving both of us a bad name," he says.

I mention the defrocked doctor. "You know, I think I came across that one," he says. "Not good."

But is it still a good name?

"You bet it is. It's our name."

'Is this a joke?" says Richard Chin, the squash player. "What is this story about?"

Richard Chin, according to the Internet, appears to be a squash titan, a member of the national team, an inductee to the Cornell University athletic hall of fame and the squash pro at the Harvard Club of New York where I've gotten him on the phone.

He says he can't talk because he has to get on the court, but he offers me his e-mail address to contact him later.

"I don't have to spell the name, right?"

Richard Chin is also the CEO of OXiGENE, "an emerging pharmaceutical company" based in Massachusetts. He's also a graduate of Harvard Medical School and a Rhodes scholar, according to the company Web site.

But when I try to reach him, I get his voice mail. "Richard Chin," he says, is not available. His voice is deep and dignified. Just like mine! Already, it's a little confusing keeping all these Richard Chins straight. I feel like I'm losing my identity.

'I'd like to talk to Judge Chin." It's hard to say this without laughing.

"Are you serious," says the woman who answers the phone at the Massachusetts Superior Court when I explain who's calling. She tells me she has never Googled herself. But then she does it while I'm on the phone.

"Isn't that fun," she says.

She tells me to call another number to reach Judge Richard Chin.

"Oh, he's fabulous," she says when I ask if his honor has a sense of humor.

"And it's regarding?" says the person at that phone. After another explanation of Googling yourself, she says "One moment please," and the next voice I hear is Judge Richard Chin.

Judge Chin tells me that he was the first Asian-American judge in Massachusetts when he was appointed by then-governor Michael Dukakis in 1989. He says he has never Googled himself.

"I'm not very computer literate." But he says, "It's been a great name for me."

Is it Richard?

"Most of my friends call me Dick."

My mother would like me to be you.

"Great!"

'You have the wrong person," says the woman who answers Richard Chin's phone in Oregon.

Google Richard Chin and you'll find a Portland-based modeling agency's Web site with pictures of male model Richard Chin dressed in a camel blazer, Richard leaning against a chain-link fence, even Richard shirtless. Richard is 5 foot 11 inches tall, wears a 40 regular suit and size 9 shoes, according to the Web site.

"A male model?" my daughter says when I tell her about this alter ego. "Gee, Dad, you better pick it up."

But when I ask if I've reached Richard the model, the woman on the phone in Portland says, "This Richard Chin is 72 years old."

I briefly consider asking to speak to him, but how many 72-year-olds Google themselves?

'Can I tell him who's calling?" says the person answering the phone at the Norwich Free Academy, a prep school in Connecticut.

I pause. I still have trouble with this part.

"Actually, my name is Richard Chin, too."

"It is?"

When I get him on the phone, science teacher Richard Chin admits he has Googled himself, but mainly because he, too, is concerned about identity theft.

He says he once lived in an apartment complex in Groton, Conn., where another Richard Chin lived. "I wondered if he was getting my mail."

"I know about the squash player," he says. "I was surprised to see so many other people named Richard Chin because I think of myself as a unique person."

Welcome to the club, pal.

But look at the bright side, he tells me. "I feel happy there are people who are doing the name well for me."

When Richard Chin returns my call, he tells me he's a model, but not a supermodel. He still needs his day job doing consulting work for an engineering firm.

But he has done runway shows, television commercials and print ads. He once dressed like a Roman for a hot tub and spa ad. He once was a hand model for Magnavox DVDs.

"I've done some odd stuff."

Lots of models go by one name, he says, but he thinks Richard Chin is a good name for modeling. If only there weren't so many of us.

"Whenever you try to get an e-mail account, someone already has your name," he says. "When Gmail came out, forget about that."

He says he got into the modeling racket after his goal of playing professional soccer in Hong Kong didn't work out. Last June, his picture appeared in People's Hottest Bachelors issue because his sister insisted he enter an online contest.

Richard Chin is hot because: "I'm multilingual. I translate jock and fashion into English," according to the caption in the magazine.

He says he has Googled himself. "I was bored where I was working." He remembers seeing a racquetball player. Squash player, I tell him, Cornell University hall of famer.

"Back in the day, I played Olympic development soccer," he says.

Did he see me online?

"I can't remember if I did."

I must sound deflated.

"I'm sure I came across you," he says.

The next person I talk to doesn't have my name, but she has my obsession.

Grace Lee is a Los Angeles filmmaker who made a documentary film called "The Grace Lee Project."

She says she was the only person she knew with her name when she was growing up in Missouri. But once she left the Midwest, everyone she met seemed to know someone else named Grace Lee. And that person was a dutiful straight-A student, tennis champ and violin prodigy.

"I felt like such a loser compared to these Grace Lees," Grace Lee says.

When she went to film school at UCLA, she says there were about a dozen other Grace Lees on campus.

"I never met one, but I got their e-mails."

So, she made a movie about being Grace Lee. She says she started the film before Googling yourself was a common activity. But the film spawned a Web site, www.gracelee. net, which is the first link that pops up when you Google Grace Lee. The site invites anyone named Grace Lee to answer survey questions like how many years they took piano.

My question for Grace Lee: Know of any Richard Chins?

"I feel like I have," she says. "But I can't think of anyone off the top of my head."

The first link Google gives you when you search Richard Chin is the home page of a Cal Tech alumni who currently works as a lab manager at Stanford (My alma mater. Weird.)

Richard tells me he works in something that sounds very high tech: nanocharacterization. But he claims the last time he searched on his own name was so long ago that it might have been pre-Google. He says he might have Alta Vistaed himself. He has not met another Richard Chin.

"I think I know a few people named Grace Lee," he tells me.

Richard Chin the squash player and Richard Chin the Rhodes scholar and Richard Chin the veterinarian never called me back. But I did get an e-mail from a Richard Chin the Australian.

This Richard actually chose to be Richard.

"It was not given to me by my parents at birth. But I acquired it when we migrated to Australia from Malaysia because people had trouble pronouncing my given Chinese names."

Richard chose the name Richard, the name of a favorite uncle. "He was a medical doctor. I was, too."

But now he's the national director of a university Christian organization called the Australian Fellowship of Evangelical Students.

He says there's at least one other Richard Chin in Australia.

"The only reason I heard about him is because other friends thought it was me."

'I've never encountered another Richard Chin," says the last Richard Chin I talk to.

He's a doctor from New York who says he has never Googled himself. He tells me he's a professor at Long Island University and the author of seven books. "I'm the Richard Chin who's the martial artist, author and pioneer in Chinese medicine," he says.

His parents just liked the name Richard, he says.

"It's been good for me. It works. It's ours. What are you going to do with it?"

I guess I'll keep it. After all, it could be worse. If I was born a girl, I would have been named Mabel, after a waitress character in a Black Label beer commercial. Mabel Chin the journalist. Also known as Mabel Chin the administrator at MIT, Mabel Chin the court reporter and Mabel Chin the Malaysian beauty queen.

Richard Chin can be reached at rchin@pioneerpress.com or 651-228-5560.

Source: Saint Paul Pioneer Press (St. Paul, Minn.)

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