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Vancouver’s North Shore has recently seen the influx of numerous Korean immigrants, and classrooms have become generously sprinkled with children who arrive speaking little or no English. We have Jin Joo, Dong Gwan, Jin Shiu, Hae Reen, and many more. It seems to be convention for these kids to take “Canadian” names shortly after their arrival, likely in response to the constant mispronunciation of their names by teachers and classmates - they become Jane, Mike, Annie, Elly.
Dong Baum (pronounced Bum) Shin went by his Korean name longer than most, and, surprisingly, his playmates didn’t appear to notice that it sounded like an unfortunate conglomeration of body parts. Eventually, however, he decided to take a Canadian name, and wanted to be called Harry, after the famous Harry Potter.
It happens that original names in the school registers are often typed up in parentheses after the new, assumed name, and so Dong Baum, as Harry, would become Harry Dong Bum Shin. This might escape the notice of his Grade 4 classmates this year, but what would happen in, say, Grade 6, or worse, high school, the name iterated by eight consecutive teachers trying to keep straight faces.
Poor Dong Baum didn’t know that Harry was a homophone with “hairy,” and he certainly didn’t know about “dong.” The teacher was in the awkward position of having to explain. How to advise a child about to invite slaughter by even the kindest of his classmates, and laughter from every would-be employer reading his C.V.? How to convey the Canadian meaning of “dong”?
His last name, as it turns out, was not so unfortunate after all. Dong Baum’s teacher was able to convince him that he would not want to be called “Hairy Shin” for the rest of his life, and he decided, instead, to become “Danny.”
And so Danny (Dong Baum) Shin - a sweet, quiet boy - is safe for now.
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1 comment:
I love foreign words and names. I always have done. In the playground of the primary school my daughter used to attend (gosh, was it really 21 years ago?) I think I read somewhere that 11 languages have been counted and 30% of the children have English as a second language. This appears to be no hindrance to education and school life as the school has come 38th out of 17,804 schools in the country in OFSTED standards tests. One of the larger groups of foreign nationals in our town are Lithuanian. This is a language unlike any other, and as my neighbours are Lithuanian I made it my business to learn a few pleasantries.
I took in a few parcels for one of the boys, when the postman couldn;t get a reply. The label saiud it was for Harijus Uselis. Checking on the pronunciation via the internet as best I could, I really did try to make sure it came out more as 'ari-oos and did not sound to much like hairyarse. It did not occur to me until I carefully told one of the girls I had a parcel for "airi-arse useless", to which she looked puzzled and read off the label, 'Ah, Airyarse Oosayless.'
Really I tried not to emit a schoolboy snigger. I did truly.
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