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In 2018, I wrote this blog post, “What’s In A Name” where I discussed the connection between a name and an identity, and the realities of having a non-Western name in an international context. The majority of students at my school in Vietnam have Western nicknames registered in the database, like Jason or Annie. They have their Vietnamese name, but many of them don’t go by that in the class.
It’s been 3 years since I wrote that post, and in the last three years, I’ve learnt more. I’ve met people who have come from all walks of life, people with experiences so contextually different from mine but conceptually the same. I came across books and posts and Tweets that forced my brain to think and expand beyond what I knew. I learnt and I grew, and as I begin applying for jobs for the next school year, now is the time. I will no longer be going by the Anglicised pronunciation of my name, Kanako (Ka-Nah-Ko) that I’ve gone by for 15 years and will be using the proper pronunciation of my name, “KA-nako” (click here to listen) I know I don’t have to explain anything to anyone, but if you want to learn about the process I went through to come to this decision, keep reading :) In 2005 when I moved to Taipei, my first time abroad, I didn’t speak any English, I didn’t know anything about languages and cultures that weren’t Japanese, and so when my teacher pronounced my name as “Ka-Nah-Ko’, I accepted that that was “how it was pronounced in English”. I didn’t know better and a part of me thought it was “cool” to have a name that’s MY name but also a bit different. It made me feel… cool. Different. Better. And that was it; that was my “name” for years to come. In 2010 upon returning to Japan, I met a new group of people; English speakers who also spoke Japanese. I noticed they had the tendency to pronounce my name the Japanese way, and I didn’t think too much about it beyond “oh they know how to say it in Japanese so they’re just using that”. 2010 me was so oblivious and naive… 10 years later, I sat in my living room in Vietnam, reading Dr. Danau Tanu’s book, “Growing Up in Transit”. While this book had many many topics that were eye-opening for me, including examining my internalised racism, believing in the supremacy of Western ideas, concepts, goods, people, etc… which I’d love to write about in another post, but this section really really stood out to me. In relation to a student, Vandana, who decided on how her name is pronounced based on how her kindergarten teacher said it in the class, not by how it is pronounced by speakers of her language, Danau writes that “(a)lthough (mis)pronunciation of a name may appear trivial, it is symbolic of the power of the dominant culture to shape identities''. Both Vandana and I allowed speakers of other languages, and more importantly, speakers of English, the dominant language, to determine HOW our cultural names are pronounced. And me accepting that as is, isn’t that a prime example of internalised racism and internalising the Western “brand”? My name, a beautiful Japanese name, wasn’t perceived to be important enough to maintain its pronunciation and I just… went along with it. Reading this back in September, I began thinking about what this realisation means for me. In a way, the Anglicised pronunciation of my name has given me an identity, an international identity. I was Ka-NAH-ko around international friends, and KA-nako around Japanese friends. And that’s how I’d thought about it for years. But now, I’m… more knowledgeable. More inquisitive. More self reflective. More aware of how my beliefs & values have been shaped up to this point. At the AIELOC / WoCinELT Conference this weekend, Darnell Fine encouraged us to engage in a conversation about names. About getting our students’ names right. Trying our best to pronounce names that may be “difficult” for us, depending on what languages we speak. How names that are “difficult” for us are just “unpracticed”. So, learn, practice, have students correct you, practice again, master it. And that’s when it hit me. If I, an educator, a TCK, an adult, a person who has been a member of the international community for more than half of my life, is continuing to identify by the wrong pronunciation of my name because that is what the dominant culture demanded from me, then how can I encourage my students to be better? If I don’t do better *for myself* how can I support my students to do better? If I don’t believe in the importance of correctly pronounced names *for myself* how do I instill this belief in my students? One of the goals I have in life is to model the beliefs, values, and behaviours I want to see from my students. Whether that’s being principled, doing the right thing, being vulnerable, or being true to myself, I can’t preach what I am not practicing. It’s not an authentic example for students to see if I don’t believe in it. So. I am starting by practicing what I believe in. I’m starting with me. So I can do better, for myself, and for my students. So. Hello. My name is Kanako, pronounced KA-nako. It’s nice to meet you all, again.
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“All the Brendon’s I’ve known have been tall!”
“Alisha? She doesn’t look like an Alisha.” “All Vietnamese/Chinese/Korean have Nguyen/Chen/Kim as their last name.” More often than not, we stereotype and make assumptions about other people and their culture just by their names. And usually, names are one of the first information we acquire about a new person in our lives. For example, I already know the names of my colleagues for next year, even though they are currently working at another school and will not physically be in Vietnam until late July. And oddly enough, their names are actually the only thing I know about them. But a name is so much more than just a name. A name is an identity. Some names have meaning and significance, like how Abigail is derived from a Hebrew name that means “my father is joy”, or how Ichiro (一郎) means “first born son“. Our given name is something we carry with us from the time we are born to the time we leave this world. It is often the one thing that don’t change in a life full of changes. It identifies us in a crowd, separates us from others, and we feel a connection to someone who shares the same name as us. So why are we not making more of an effort to learn our students’ names? Many of our students go by a “Western” name, even though the majority of the students are Vietnamese. It helps the expat teachers, because Vietnamese names are difficult to pronounce… but should that stop us from learning their real names? In Kiang (2004), many Asian American students give testimonies to their experiences with hard-to-pronounce names. One notes the positive emotion and connection she felt when a professor pronounced her Vietnamese last name correctly. Shouldn’t we be doing the same for our students too? Shouldn’t we be allowing, no, ASKING, our students to identify by a name that they have a strong connection to, something their parents thought long and hard about to give to their child, instead of an easy-to-pronounce Western name that they got just because they were coming to an English speaking school? If we can pronounce names like Tchaikovsky, Niamh, Scwarzenegger, and Mikhailov, we can learn to pronounce Dinh Ngoc Truc Anh too. Is that none of my friends live within a quick visiting distance!
Especially coming straight out of college where we all lived on the same college campus, 10-15 min walk away from each other maximum, not being able to pop by my friends’ room for a quick chat has been very frustrating, and at times, has made me feel lonely. It was different for school holidays when I was “back” in Japan because I knew in a few short weeks, I’d be back in Boston to see them again. Now, my most immediate plan of being in Boston is in 7 months and that’s not even a definite plan yet. And first year of adulthood is difficult. I miss those Friday nights on a couch with my friends sipping wine with a lighthearted movie in the background we don’t even pay attention to because we’re too busy talking. Things have been rough lately, professionally and personally. Times like this, I find myself wanting to text my Boston friends the usual “HEY can I come over and vent”. Kind of makes me realise how blessed I was to have friends in such close proximity back in college! Adult friendships are hard as is with everyone working and not being on the same synchronised schedules. Adding distance to it doesn’t help that. BUT we’ve established a system of texting when we can, whatever we can, FaceTiming when we have the time, and today I’m extra thankful for friends who make an effort to keep in touch, who are still available when it counts, and for those who sends me funny memes and puns for me to wake up to |
Blog:A place for me to document my journey as a learner, a teacher, and an adult without the character limit of 280. Archives
January 2022
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