What's in a name?

It’s a popular trend for the Chinese to adopt Western ‘names’.  All of our students and local staff have these; the majority were given to them by their parents, others have been plucked from obscurity/internet name lists.  Although some names may be weird and wonderful, I have to admit, it makes life a whole lot easier than struggling to pronounce Chinese names, and perfect the tones so you don’t unintentionally call someone something obscene.

I’ve categorised a selection below, so you can see just what we’re dealing with:

Cartoon characters – Dora, Jerry, Minnie.

Colours – Black, White.

Film stars – Angelina, Harrison.

Nonsense names – Cherney, Gogo, Kison, Ticko, Turing, Wydia, Yamor.

Random nouns – Apple, Cherry, Flower, Mountain, Queen, Spring, Tear, Tiger, Yoyo.

Stripper names– Angel, Candy, Cindy, Kitty.

Unusual/names with connotations – Ivan, Lucky, Malboro, Dick, Johnson.

A xx

You buy?

A friend's recent Facebook post posed the question: "Doo you liiiiie Veenameeeee cofeeeeee?" This is a fairly accurate representation of the average Vietnamese person's pronunciation of the English language.  You get the gist and politely answer in as slow and standard of a response as you can muster.

 

Whilst eating at my favourite vegetarian restaurant a couple of weeks ago, I was approached by a small boy carrying a tray of ‘goodies’, who uttered the words “You buy from me”.  It was unclear from his facial expression or intonation if this was a question or statement.  Not wanting to be rude, I replied “No, thank you” and looked back at my meal.  “Why you no buy from me?” he pressed on.  Oh, so now I have to justify my answer to a small Vietnamese child who I am 90% sure will not understand my response.  I decide to resort to ‘Vietnamese sign language’ I shake both of my hands, mimicking the ‘I don’t know’ gesture I see all too often.  Success – he leaves to pester another unsuspecting westerner.

 

On a day off, whilst taking a trip to the cash machine, a local cyclo driver in the backpacker area heckles at me “Ah, you!  Remember me?  You want ride?”  Who does this chancer think he is?  I don’t know him, never in the time I have been here have I used a cyclo and I definitely wouldn’t choose this joker if the mood did take me.  I politely utter a few words of my 'best’ Vietnamese, indicating I work at a local school – a polite way of saving face and making him feel like a fool in front of his friend.  Don’t mess with Lou Lou!

 

It’s surprising how much English some of the street kids know.  They walk around the backpacker area in all hours, selling anything from tissues, chewing gum and handmade jewellery to cigarettes and novelty lighters.  As they go, they pick up useful, commonly used phrases to aid their cause.  Super streetwise, or as Jack Sparrow would say ‘savvy’, they can spot a naïve backpacker at 20 yards.  Prodding expats’ breasts in search of hidden money and mobile phones, they perch on the laps of innocent drinkers outside bars and play ‘snake’ or whatever other games lurk inside the handheld devices.

 

I suppose they’re only doing what they know though, after all – if you don’t ask, you don’t get.  And the people of this country certainly didn't get where they are today by taking a back seat and waiting for others to help them.  Buddha loves a trier.

 

A xx

There are certain things you just come to accept…

1. I will never look attractive wearing a bike helmet.

2. I will never look attractive wearing my purple and pink plastic poncho.

3. I will never look less attractive than when wearing the bike helmet and

    plastic poncho ensemble.

4. I will never truly feel clean or attractive in a tropical country.

5. You will be heckled by every xe-om driver and his dog during dry weather when you

    want to walk, but there's just never anyone around when you need a ride in the rain.

6. One student in every class will always have a personal hygiene issue.

7. No matter how much you practice pronunciation of consonant clusters prior to an

    observation, your 5 year old students will still pronounce 'clock' as 'cock'.

And that's just how it is... but I'm fine with it! 

A xx

Vienetta-namese: possible pronunciation problems

So, Saigon life rolls on, my Vietnamese lessons are in full flow – I should be fairly fluent by 2025!  18 English teachers in a class, our teacher is one of our school’s Vietnamese teaching assistants. The other ‘students’ in the class are good craic and we're helping each other as best we can. I find mimicking is the best way to go, as well as making crude comparisons to concepts and noises from English - makes it all the more memorable.

Now then, the minefield that is learning a tonal language; I grasped the concept easily enough and during my mandarin lessons could both hear and produce the four tones used in mandarin.  Here there are six.  To make matters worse, all words are mono-syllabic and addressing native speakers who have little experience of the troubles facing second language learners can lead to only one thing – frustration on both parts. 

It is near impossible to even attempt to pronounce a Vietnamese name without hearing it a minimum of 3 times. As such, I’ve given the students in three out of my five classes English names.  I felt it unfair and potentially confusing to ask my younger students to remember English names, so I write their names phonetically on the registers and as such have things like ‘my’, ‘fat’, ‘he’, ‘nee – as in oniony’ printed in black and white for all to see.  I often think if I sneezed or coughed in class a child would answer to it.

Similarly, this applies with adults. Myself and the motley crew of fellow professional gypsies known as my colleagues have taken to christening people depending upon their profession.  Hence forth we have noodle man, massage man, wonton woman, smoothie man, book lady, cake man and squid man (we all agreed cephalopod bloke was a little too challenging to pronounce after a few rums!).  I concede, this is not ideal (nor particularly imaginative on our collective linguistic parts), but it is necessary to ‘save face’.  Six tones can likely lead to total confusion and the risk of causing great offence if pronounced slightly incorrectly.  Therefore, in a bid to avoid scenes of addressing someone’s mother as a horse (or God forbid worse) I’ll stick with the formula: profession + gender.

So, new experiences recently include eating jellyfish and goat - I can recommend both. I've also mastered the art of riding side-saddle on a xe-om: it's a difficult thing to do in dense traffic whilst wearing a mini skirt and trying not to get burnt legs from the exhausts of neighbouring bikes.  I've been volunteering at the Blind Shelter, taking the guys and girls swimming at a local pool with some of the other teachers.

I read an interesting article the other week about the women of Saigon who don polyester matching twin sets - top and trousers sets resembling sweaty pyjamas - I could have a rant about that, but let's not go there. If any of you ladies do want some garish poly mix fabric though I'm sure I can pick out a little number and have it sent home for those warm summer nights! Vietnamese fancy dress in Liverpool girls? - Consider it!

A xx