On Quynh Anh
"What's your Vietnamese name?" a chi asked me.
I can't help to draw a smile on my face because I've been praying that someone would ask me this. As an expat in Vietnam, I have to ask the locals for their English names, if they have one, since their names are quite hard to pronounce.
I had a student named Huy, where I mispronounced it as /Uy/ and not /hui/ and he got angry at me because of that.
Also, I have thought about it for so long and considered a lot of Vietnamese names I encountered. I didn't expect this day would come.
"Quynh Anh"
/kwIng æng/
I had a student named Quynh Anh before. She was the cutest in the class and her curly wavy hair looks great on her. Of all the students I know apart from Sammy, Quynh Anh parked in my memories the most.
"Why Quynh Anh?"
"Ummm," I paused while I thought of ways how to explain it to her. "It sounds like Queen Anne. See, I'm a queen. Quynh Anh, Queen Anne." As I did some body actions with a crown on her head.
And she aaaah'd like an Asian and we burst out with laughter. "Very funny," she said.
Then I asked her. "My student, little girl name Tao, meaning, Apple"
She nodded, "Yes. Maybe her mom like apple when she still pregnant."
"So, Quynh Anh means?"
"No meaning."
"No meaning?"
"Yes. Only you meaning."
I guess I made Quynh Anh a meaning then.