Qinwei Wu- Week 3: I’m Not Vivian.
“Hello everyone, I will be your sub for today. I am going to be taking attendance now.”
Somehow, I always know when the teacher will say my name. They’ll hesitate. They’ll even add a “I think I’m going to mispronounce this ….” or, “Sorry… is it…?” But, on rare occasions, there are instructors who pronounce my name correctly (yay!).
Although I wish I had a more pronounceable name, I wouldn’t change my name even if someone butchered it so badly that I wouldn’t even know that they were talking to me. The worst pronunciation of my name came from a substitute teacher—it was “kin-wee” (skull emoji).
When I came to America, my parents found it fitting to give me an English name, since we were in a country where everyone spoke English.
So, I was Vivian.
I was fine being “Vivian” when I was in kindergarten, because I didn’t care about what people called me. My parents called me Qinwei, and my family friends called me Weiwei. I didn’t care that another word was added to my list of “words that I should probably respond to”. That was how I felt up until second grade.
In second grade, I started hating the name Vivian. I hated when people called me it and I hated that my parents called me Vivian instead of Qinwei. I started to come up with new names for myself. I told my classmates to call me “Keewee”, because I liked kiwis. When I went to summer school, I told everyone to call me “Cassie”, because I thought that name was pretty.
Finally, I decided to just go by Qinwei in the fourth grade, although I had to “americanize” it a bit. The Chinese pronunciation of “q” is not really the same as the pronunciation of “ch” in English. I had to change it up a bit so people would not struggle to use the real pronunciation.
In 6th grade, in an attempt to teach people how to say my name, I would point to my chin and make a wave motion. I changed my social media usernames to “chinway”, so people could (hopefully!) make the connection to the pronunciation of my name (though that kind of backfired because people thought my real name was "Chinway").
Quite often, people would misspell my name as “Quinwei”. Every time I see this misspelling I find it funny because they are simply following the standard English conventions. Who could blame them for paying attention in elementary school?
I didn’t choose to go back to being Qinwei because I wanted to make things harder for everyone. It’s part of who I am, and it is a unique name that belongs only to me. I’d be damned if someone asked, “which Qinwei are you talking about?” Qinwei is the name my parents gave me and I feel like a Qinwei, so I will go by Qinwei. And if you call me Vivian, I’d be pissed, because I’m not Vivian, I’m Qinwei!
Hi Qinwei!! I relate to this a lot because I also go through the same thing. It's a little annoying to hear my name being mispronounced every time I introduce myself, but I would not want to be called anything else. I especially love the overall tone of this blog, it feels cozy and understanding. i also like how you started the blog with a rhetorical scenario. But I am curious, your name sounds beautiful; what does it mean?
ReplyDeleteHi, Qinwei, Happy Wednesday! I did not think about it much growing up because I have an American name, but my brother(being born a lot earlier than me) has a Chinese name. He goes by two names; John and Yilin. I asked him which name he preferred to use once, and he said both. He told me that he loves his Chinese name because it is a beautiful name given to him, while John is a name that he personally chose to make his life more convenient when meeting strangers. I've seen him mixing the usage of his two names a lot; I think it represents that he really liked both of them equally and chose the one that he thinks suits the situation the best. Your own stance regarding this is great; it really shows that you are proud of your identity!
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed the start(hook) of your blog. The example feels very immersive and really dragged me into that position. Your blog is very well paced and chronologically organized using the timeline between your name and you. I really liked the rhetorical question that you used near the end of the blog. It’s pretty funny! Thanks for writing this amazing blog and I enjoyed reading it!
Hey, Qinwei, happy Wednesday! Your blog is extremely heartfelt, and I appreciate your honesty. I can heavily relate to your experience, because everyone seems to get my name as "Viren" or "Vareen" or something, and many call me that maliciously to make fun of me. It is so irritating, because even though it is just a singular word, it's my own. It's my name, and it was chosen by my parents for uniqueness, so it frustrates me. It doubly infuriates me because it is constant, and half of the time I cannot tell whether it was done maliciously or accidentally. Therefore, I offer you my sympathy for having to endure this constant shuffling of names. Your imagery and analogy grip my interest and pull me in to the story, as I found myself relating more as you continued your story. You pose a very interesting question at the end: there is no one to really "blame" for these errors, because that is simply the natural way of English we are taught as students living and learning here. Therefore, there is no clear solution for it here, which frustrates me, but I have accepted that fact, and I am glad you seem to not hold too much resentment over it either. It is simply a common occurrence we must strive to deal with and avoid if we can. Thank you very much for this emotional and story-driven blog, and good work.
ReplyDeleteQuinwei, I think that your progression of how you have decided to represent yourself through your name is individual and valuable. First off, thank you for elaborating how to say your name through a story; that will definitely make it easier to relate to for me. The continual breakdown of how you have changed how you prefer to be called makes it easy and enjoyable to follow along your journey.
ReplyDeleteThe same thing happens to me whenever a substitute teacher shows up in our class. You might not think ‘Seth’ is a hard name to pronounce, and you’d be right. But every time the sub reads off the attendance sheet, some strange universal manufacturing error causes them to read my middle name, ‘Mikhail,’ first. And they don’t even pronounce it correctly; I’ve heard ‘Michael’ and even ‘Mikkel’ from people who didn’t know how to read off a Russian last name.
My problem probably isn’t as prevalent as yours, but it helps make your delivery a little more compelling in my eyes.
What's up Qinwei! I like your creative image where you created your chinese name next to jellyfish. I think that is very unique and I think your name has a lot of meaning to it. I really like your structure throughout the blog and the use of embedded quotes within your carefully crafted sentences. I think it's important as well to keep your original name because it is a part of your identity. I think a name is a part of a person that is completely unique. I have a Chinese name as well. It's Sai Yat Ling. Of course there is meaning to it. It means the world's number 1. My name literally has a number but I like the way it sounds and the meaning behind it. I think it also projects my culture as well and I think it's a way to stay connected. I think what you said was very interesting and informative. I totally agree with how the subs pronounce names. I can anticipate what they are going to say before they even say it. I agree about how you would never change your name no matter how much someone butchers it. I find my name super interesting and unique and will not give it up. I also really enjoy the way you effectively use emotion throughout the blog. You used words such as “dammed” to emphasize how mad you would be if someone called you Vivian instead of Qinwei. That's funny but it's effective at the same time because it shows your emotion in a way that most people would use it. I think your evolution from your younger years was actually very interesting because it shows that you matured from someone who wanted to fit in to someone who actually thought about their own identity. I think this was a lovely blog and would totally fit a college application essay! Thank you for all you do!
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