When communicating with foreign cultures, the gender of the addressed person is not always clear from the name. What would be a professional way to address someone in this situation. (Dear Mr or Ms SomeForeignName looks awkward).
A hack I generally use is to do a google image search for the name, but this isn't always accurate in all cultures. What's the solution here?
Working part-time in customer support, I have to deal with the same situation very often, and I often have to google for "awkward" names, too. What I usually end up with when nothing helps, is either of the following:
Also, I might sometimes use a simple "Hi there" or "Hi", but usually only if the person has previously contacted me using a similar informal address.
Lastly, sometimes people do ask me for a license key in a formal, polite way, but sign as "B. Smith". In that case, they either don't really care how I address them, or they don't want me to figure out their gender or full name for some reason, which I must respect. Not one of these people has ever objected to my use of "hi".
Given our construction of gender, 'tis usually a far greater sin to falsely assign a gender than to avoid formal address.
For Wei Li, I would not break up the name and say Dear Wei or Dear Li, because some people use reverse order with surname first, and some people have compound names.
In 2015, ODO added Mx (pronounced like "mix") as a gender-neutral pronoun.
See definition 2 for Mx on ODO
Pronunciation: /məks/ /mɪks/
NOUNA title used before a person’s surname or full name by those who wish to avoid specifying their gender or by those who prefer not to identify themselves as male or female
"To me, Mx Bond embodies the very best kind of girl a boy could ever grow up to become."
Origin
1970s: apparently from M (as in Mr, Mrs, Ms, etc.) + X1 (probably denoting an unknown or variable factor or quantity).
For further reading: Mx (title) on Wikipedia
The word was first proposed in the late 1970s. The "x" is intended to stand as a wildcard character, and does not imply a "mixed" gender.
Ngram shows some data, but it's unclear what Mx means there.
If you are lucky there may be a title you can choose. "Dear Professor Doe" is safe for either gender. Likewise of "Doctor" (either the academic or the medical/veterinary/dental variety), and for military, police or clerical ranks.
Failing that I go with "Dear Full Name" as others have suggested, as it contains nothing that might offend and still conveys a basic degree of formality and respect.
When faced with this problem in an email (my most normal scenario), I look at the signature and use that to address the person.
