Storytelling Saturday #4: “What’s your real name?”
Welcome back to Storytelling Saturday, where I share stories about my experiences as an international student and immigrant. A happy reminder to put away your suggestions when it wasn’t asked.
“You can be confident in who you are with me,” they say.
Choosing the name Karen as my own was the happiest day that I remember. It was the name of my favourite game character (of which game I cannot recall; I only know that this Karen was a witch with a red hat), and living in a Western country gave me the perfect opportunity to call myself by a witch’s name. What a privilege it was to choose what I want to be called.
I have now lived as a Karen for longer than I have with my Korean name. Although the name has attracted a certain notoriety in recent years—one that’s much worse than a witch—I am proud to be Karen. But recently, little by little, my closest friends and teachers offer – or indeed insist – to call me by my “real” name. “You can be confident in who you are with me”, they say. This is usually accompanied by a look that seems to say, “I empathise. I’m an alley.”
If not face-to-face, these messages would slide into my DMs. And I have never found myself in a conversation so far where this was appropriate. We could be talking about… the right amount of food to feed to a 5-week-old puppy, for example… and this would bud in out of nowhere. It was as if these people were dying to tell me this, that I could feel safe around them, but I foolishly never led the conversation in this direction. She’s masking, they might have thought. I am still looking for the elephant in the room, which everyone around me seems to see except for me. Am I the elephant in the room?
Over the years, I have slowly gathered that these offers were said to me after the person has read something about discrimination, acculturation, the difficulty of learning international names or have watched Kim’s Convenience for the first time.
To be fair, I know what they’re on about. It does happen. I have seen fellow Korean immigrants try so hard to be Americans or British that they lose, or actively hide, their Korean background. And this is not a voluntary change for immigrants. Back in 2000, my school teacher in New Zealand asked me to take up an English name so that “it’s easier for potential friends to speak to you”. Why don’t you be more like one of us instead of an ‘other’ among us? I was ten.
But the family I was living with was very angry that I was asked such a thing. They loved me and my Korean name, so they assured me that I didn’t need to take on any names that I did not wish. But I, who welcomed the opportunity to be called by a witch’s name, never thought that my being was being compromised in any way by choosing to be called by what I like. Perhaps I was too young to understand all the drama and the implications of choosing to become a Karen. I was both encouraged and discouraged to take up an English name. Either way, I was loved. So, I felt safe in experiencing, experimenting, and absorbing different traditions to curate who I am today. Being called Karen as an East Asian immigrant is a reflection of my journey. I am my unique blend of cultures. I am international.
People choose alternative names for all sorts of reasons. Many women change their family names to those of their husbands. Others may have changed their gender and want a name that better reflects their true selves. Whoopi Goldberg’s “real name” is Karen.
Nothing has changed in the last 25 years. I am both encouraged and discouraged to be who I am. Suggestions I never asked for. They’ll never know what a privilege it was to choose my own name.
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