my life purpose

Got chatting with a colleague after having a little giggle to myself when I spotted one of my student's names. Naturally, with Mandarin having four intonations with each tone possibly relating to a whole range of different characters, the student's name could mean something wonderful in the language. What I see, however, is the anglicised version and well, I immediately thought of a possible literal translation for the words. You have to understand my vocabulary is very limited when it comes to Mandarin so my first conclusion was his name could be "Bad Vegetable". Anyhow, I mentioned this to my colleague who told me one of her student's had a rather interesting name as well (if you translated part of it to German). This finally led to me telling her that my Chinese name could be taken to be "Vegetable Art with a Heart" if you looked at the separate components in the two characters. In fact, put them together with my family name and I would be a Thankful Vegetable Art with a Heart. She offered the idea that I could be one of those sculpted carrot garnishes that she thought all Asians were skilled at making, having learnt the trade since kindergarten (she was kidding of course). So then I jokingly said, "My life has meaning. I have found my one true purpose. I shall go sit on a dish now".