> Hindi is spelled phonetically in English
Reading English phonetically is highly non-trivial. Each vowel can be pronounced different ways depending on factors that are not always easy to understand, particularly for non-native speakers. Same for a lot of consonants. I have no clue which accent I am supposed to have when reading romanised Hindi. East coast American? Estuary English? British RP? Australian? That could be 4 different ways of pronouncing the letter "A". Hell, I am not even sure all Hindi speakers would agree on the pronunciation of a random word because of differing accents.
> On the third hand though, Chinese names are often spelled with a Romanization that wasn’t designed for use by English speakers, so of course they can’t do it. If you want them to not mangle your name, use the Yale Romanization.
You cannot expect people to know of any specific romanisation scheme. There are different ones, used by different people and in different contexts, and that are often at odds with the spelling of well known names (like famous people or cities).
What's hilarious is people in a non-English speaking country, e.g. Germany or France, using the same romanisation as in English because it's "the correct way" and then getting the phonetics completely wrong.
> I think people want there to be a simple answer like “everyone just change your name to John Smith” or “if they can’t pronounce Xi Jinping, they’re racists” but simple answers don’t really apply. We’re all just going to muddle through the best we can.
Exactly. Ideally, it's best effort on both sides: don't be a dick if they pronounce your name wrong a couple of times and hopefully they won't be idiots either and at least try.
As a non-native English speaker who's spent quite a few years in English-speaking countries, sometimes you roll your eyes and sometimes it's funny, but it is rarely worth fighting about pronunciation issues.