it is always interesting to live amongst people from different cultures and ethnic groups, and where different languages are used. and in singapore (and malaysia), where chinese of different dialect/ ethnic origins live together, it is not uncommon to come across names that sound totally wrong when understood from the perspective of another dialect/ language. and to add further challenges to this, it is also very common to have chinese people adopting english names. so when their english names are placed in front of their anglicised chinese surname (last name), things start to sound wrong...
here're some examples:
- i was once posted to a new unit and on my first day of reporting, a female colleague (who's peranakan and didn't understand a word of cantonese) introduced me to another new female colleague (who's cantonese). she came up to me and, in a very sporting and enthusiastic manner, said: "hi jeffrey! this is kum lan". as she introduced, the cantonese colleague seemed a little shy. she simply smiled and looked down. as for me, i almost laughed out loud but managed to control myself. apparently my peranakan colleague did not understand cantonese nor hokkien (my dialect group). and becos she's peranakan, her pronunciation of the cantonese name kum lan came out totally wrong. in cantonese, her name could be translated to "golden orchid", but when my peranakan colleague pronounced, it sounded more like how we hokkiens pronounce the words for "sucking cock" (aka blow job). lol!
- in another instance, another colleague came up to me and introduced himself as karl chng. but given that his tongue was a little short, he couldn't really pronounce the "l" in "karl", and what came out sounded like "kar-chng" or "backside" in hokkien!
- esther see (ecstasy)
- annie how ('nuf said)
- annie ting ('nuf said too)
and many more examples...
how unfortunate right?
lol!
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