I almost became a Carol.

The Caucasian couple who came to greet us at the airport, Kathy and LeRoy, were good friends of my grandparents even though my grandparents could hardly carry a decent conversation in English. Kathy and LeRoy were very old retirees who loved helping people during their free time. After we arrived in Iowa, we needed a lot of assistance getting acclimated.

For a while, Kathy and LeRoy came to my grandparents’ business establishment at least once a week to help us learn English. There were 8 of us newbies: my parents, my brother and I, my aunt and uncle, plus their two children (who were about the same age as my brother and I). The adults had been taking a few English courses to learn some very basic vocabularies, but the 4 kids had absolutely no idea what are the 26 letters of the alphabet, let alone any words.

But first, they needed a way to address us! None of us had Western names and our Chinese names are just horrendously difficult for them to pronounce. So they came up with names for us. Yippee! The children’s names were to be: John, Ruby, Charles, and Carol. Everyone cackled and joked about “Carol” — it sounded so damn funny — at least to us, at the time. It sounded like “color” to our pristine Chinese ears and oh my it was a hoot. I hated it and wanted a different name but didn’t know any, so to Kathy and LeRoy, I was Carol. To my brother and cousins, I was Color and got teased every time Kathy and LeRoy said it. At school, we used our Chinese names, phonetically.

I hated my phonetic Chinese name too. No one could pronounce it properly and everyone asked how it is spelled.

Remember I was just 12 at the time. Conforming is necessary to survive at that age. I desperately wanted to fit in. But how could I! I looked different, I dressed different, and I didn’t even speak or understand the same language as everyone else at school. But damn it, I wanted a name that didn’t sound like some karate guys’ grunting.

Less than a year later, I came up with my own name. One that I am still using today and no one else have it. However, there is a company with that name in the UK, which unfortunately I do not own. A name that isn’t just a weird/different spelling of another name. And ain’t Carol.

* To all the Carols out there: Carol is a lovely lovely name. I just did not want it to be my name and be constantly reminded of those days.
** My brother was the only one who kept the Western name that Kathy and LeRoy gave us. The rest of us picked our own names.
*** How cool is it to pick your own name!