Beijing - "Ma", a Chinese character for horse, is the 13thmost common family name in China, shared by nearly 17 million people. That can cause no end of confusion when Mas get together, especially if those Mas also share the same given name, as many Chinese do. Ma Cheng's book-loving grandfather came up with an elegant solution to this common problem. Twenty-six years ago, when his granddaughter was born, he consulted his library of Chinese dictionaries and lighted upon a character pronounced "cheng". Cheng looks just like the character for horse, except that it is condensed   and written three times in a row. The character is so rare that once people see it, Miss Ma said, they tend to remember both her and her name. That is one reason she likes it so much. Chinese parents' desire to give their children a spark of individuality   is colliding   with the Chinese government's desire for order. Seeking to modernize its vast database on China's 1.3 billion citizens, the government's Public Security Bureau has been replacing the handwritten identity card that every Chinese must carry with a computer-readable one, complete with color1 photos and microchips. The new cards are harder to forge   and can be scanned at places like airports where security is a priority. The bureau's computers, however, are programmed to read only 32,252 of the roughly 55,000 Chinese characters according to a 2006 government report. The result is that Miss Ma and at least some of the 60 million other Chinese with  _ characters in their names cannot get new cards -- unless they change their names to something more common. Moreover, the situation is about to get worse or, in the government's view, better. Since at least 2003, China has been working on a standardized list of characters for people to use in everyday life, including when naming children. The list will aim to control the use of obscure names. This passage is somewhat like a(n)   _  .
advertisement official document special report study plan