Chee Lai!

Mmmhmm. Go ahead, keep digging yourself deeper...

OTOH, my informant has spoken it every day of her life.

"Your informant" is either having some Chinese fun at your expense or is speaking some local Chinese dialect that is not Mandarin. This is not remotely open to debate. Try Googling "Ai Wewei pronounced" for starters, then listen to some sound files for how Mandarin is pronounced. Or, alternatively, listen to the individual characters in the name here and here.

Why people will insist on opining on languages they've never studied is something I cannot begin to fathom.

BTW - my Chinese student tells me that we also mispronounce Ai Wei Wei. His name should be pronounced as 'I Wee Wee'

Just for information - how old is your student?, That sounds like a joke some of my younger kids would love. Did your student also ask you to spell ICUP?

FYi - she's 33.
A mature student studying to become a psychotherapist..
And the daughter of a high-ranking civil servant.
And I've known her for three years, having met her in China.
And she's so darned honest I had to seriously prune her first application for a visa to study here.

(It is, of course, entirely possible that there's a difference between English English and American English, as far as pronunciation goes.)

(It is, of course, entirely possible that there's a difference between English English and American English, as far as pronunciation goes.)

Huh? What on earth does the difference between English dialects have to do with the pronunciation of Chinese??? Absolutely nothing! Your comments have now gone far beyond ridiculous.

Did you even listen the pronunciation of Wei here? If this sounds even the teeny-tiniest bit like "Wee" to you, see an audiologist tout de suite to be fitted for your hearing aid.

Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear!

Thanks for the laugh, Zashibis.
(But do mind your blood pressure.)

I asked my boyfriend (a native Chinese speaker) about Bo Xilai about a week ago.
He said that it xi means morninglight. And yes, Lai means 'come'.

It's a beautiful name!

Hope this helps. If still unsure can ask the boyfriend again.

If still unsure can ask the boyfriend again.

I'm a very great deal more inclined to trust the dictionaries and websites I consulted than your boyfriend. But to each their own.

I'm going to make a wild guess that your boyfriend thinks his name is written with 熹, which has the same sound and tone as 熙.

Hehe, I'll ask him again, after he comes back from his business trip.

It'll be interesting to hear. I'm 100% sure that dear boyfriend knows how that character is written since he reads the news every day. There probably aren't many Chinese adults who haven't seen this name written. I personally had never seen the character before and that's why I asked him, without any getting into it very deeply.

Interesting discussion about people vs dictionaries....
Hehe, dictionaries are made by people too.

Off topic, I remember a post about a foreign guy who made a website with many characters and their development.... I'll have a look there too.