February 21st, 2010
My name is
Today I have decided to reveal my real name. Not that Suet isn’t my real name, but I’ve only started using Suet when I started school. I’ve grown up with an entirely different name, a name that I have always felt quite ashamed of to reveal. It’s Serene, but I don’t look/sound anything like a Serene (not that I know how she will look/sound like wtf)
I really regret not using that name more because as much as I like Suet (well it is in the dictionary and it means cow fats, specifically fats around the loins WTF how unique can that be), it’s reaaaallly hard for people to understand that my parents would give me such an unfortunate name. Case study no. 1:
I was working in the kindergarten yesterday and the 4 year olds were sitting in a circle. One really cute girl looked at me and asked “what’s your name?”
The moment I heard this question my world came crushing down on me wtf. I have avoided telling these kids my name for two weeks now because I know they won’t get it but now I have to say it when ALL the kids were there T___T
“My name is Suet!” and believe me when I say I tried to say it as normally as I could. Sweat, you know, like Michelle or Sarah.
The little girl looked at me with a blank, but sympathetic face, as if she could really understand my pain wtf.
After a moment of pause, she said “I’m sweating!!” with a straight face.
This is the story of my life wtf
I always always have to repeat my name and sometimes people are nice to just accept the fact that my name sounds like perspiration, but sometimes they’ll go whaaat? and the usual oh suet means snow in chinese blabla will ensue.
Once, I heard from a friend in HK that she knew of me cause people were saying how I like to make a big deal out of my name. Right, I only had to tell them more about my name cause THEY THOUGHT MY NAME WAS A JOKE!
I guess it’s a good thing to have a different name cause my professors usually remember my name, which is quite rare if your name is common. I have a prof who actually likes how different it is and makes it a point to always call me in class just so he can hear himself saying it wtf.
Anyway there’s no point to this entry lah I’m just procrastinating from doing my papers. I spent the entire day in the library today just researching for this paper. 8 hours straight no playing around nothing. And I haven’t even started writing FML I really don’t think I like econ at all. It’s due day after tomorrow FML 2x I’m such a nerd bye bye
Related posts:
at least you grew up with general acceptance of your name, i had my classmates call me strawberry/blackberry/blueberry just cos barry was a rare name
even your sis still calls me berry D:
At least you don’t have weird names like Kinky or Kecy.
It hurts my eyes just seeing them. Your name is very unique in the normal sort of way. You should be happy.
..or Fish (Leong)… or Rihanna Chan wtf.
Very pelik la if we start to call you Serene wtf.
You work in a kindy?! Thats sooooo cute!
Oh, and how I feel your pain. Somehow.
My last name is Cheah, and sometimes… people just dont get it. They make it as if I come from a land far far far far away or something!
And the fact that I have my last name in the middle is apparently not right. Hrmph.
Good luck on your paper!
Geez, I know right! I can so relate to you as people call me susu. T___T Susu kambing, susu lembu, susu kerbau wth everything. That’s like
I totally hear you, lady. My chinese name is huizhuang and no non-yellow being can pronounce it right, Actually, even some yellow being say it wrongly. I get self-conscious just ordering my ice-blended mocha at Starbucks because they DEMAND that I surrender my name T_T
i used to call myself serenity cos i was a huge fan of sailormoon! still am! of course i don’t call myself that anymore lol. and school teachers used to always pronounce my name wrongly - avon. wtf. i hated it. worst, ee ‘voon’ wtfffff. and i don’t understand how they can see a ‘choi’ and pronounce it as ‘chooi’ stuuupid. i like your name
i agree people tend to remember you better when your name’s different.
People call me susu, my mom call me sosoya(like soya bean), my bf’s cousins call me subaru, some friends call me papaya, hari raya(coz it rhymes with suraya) like wtf la, if calling silly names make their day or even making them remember me better, i would just smile and brush it off
at least your name is not sakhdeep or thupsambong (courtesy of Russel Peters)hahahaha.
hello Serene!
well, I’m called pinky. even worse. haha on the bright side, our name can be a conversation starter.
But I think your name is nice…
Hi Serene Suet! It’s a nice name (I mean Suet) and don’t feel bad about it. I surely do understand the frustrations of having a name that people twist around and made fun out of it. It makes you kinda hate your parents for not taking into consideration on what will happen to you in the future. I myself have a bad name and I had to use my current name now just to save my friends and myself to listen to some bastardized version of it. Not that Phillip is good anyway, people just think about the electrical appliance anyway T.T
To cheer you up, I had seen some Chinese students overseas picking some rather absurd names that just makes me wonder if they are prepared to realized the complications they have created themselves into, picking names like Coffee, Banana, Sailor or Shark for that matter. I’m not lying, I know one personally myself and I had to make her realize the fact that she will need to use it to introduce herself to people in the future and how would people take her seriously with in a professional world with a name like that. Though I kinda liked a name a Chinese guy picked: Constantine. Surely didn’t think abt that :p
there’s a Cancer and a Seaman (pronounced semen) in my school
Ok ok ooib u win. Semen sounds sad. I bet he really liked David Seaman last time (There’s one game i recall who had no license on his name and called him Seawoman wtf） There’s Strong and Bright also but nothing beats Semen. Say hi to Semen for me!!! xoxo
tell me how to spell my name: Wen Xuan
you will get a good variety of BS. If hokkien, cantonese, or mandarin, my name will be transformed more and more.
“When Swan” is the typical response I bet…When swan? when swan what? new joke wtf
<3 u no matter wat ur name is and pls lor, HK-ers have more ridiculous names like Fruit and Oxide. Also, my colleague’s original name was Horny!!! My boss got him to change it to Honry cuz in the sales line you can’t go ard telling ppl u’re horny hahaa. Perhaps the slang term wasn’t coined then!
You don’t have Poi Kuan as your Chinese name.
Note Poi is spelt wrongly! Should be Pui or Pooi ( at least better )
Thanks to my dad la.
And no sane or insane human being can get it right and me being in Melbourne? Even worse.
no one can pronounce xiao here
and back home you can imagine all the jokes around that name too. but as much as they make fun of it (or cannot possibly read it) i can’t imagine myself with another name, like how you don’t feel like a serene!
HAHAHHAHA @ Seaman OMG!!
i can TOTALLY relate to this entry !!!!
i get soooo fed up when i have to repeat my name ten thousand times when i make phone calls while i was an intern working in a HR department
normally i would just tell them “you can call me Ling” cos they ALWAYS CANNOT PRONOUNCE THE WORD SUET
either they thought my name is shirley, sue ling, siew ling or something else haiyo
i also found out the meaning of suet in the dictionary when i was in secondary school HAHAHAHA we suffer the same fate wtf but at least Snow is a pretty name !
hi serene.. haha.. not sure how should i relate this post to me.. if u still remember an email written to u once upon a time..my name spelling is exactly as yours… so i know about how ppl joke on the word suet and li become bruce lee la..jet li la..n so on…
is usual that ppl cannot pronounce the name correctly so i dun bother also..as long i know they r refering to me..some even ask why not u just call shirley…
while i’m still in primary school plus all the influence from HK 4 heavenly kings with their christian name, all r obsessed of creating a christian name for themself…
now that age has catches up..it was quite funny to think of why we kids r so silly that time..
and as for now, i still introduce my self as suet li despite where i am.. (proud of own name kononnya) hahah except in online community.. =)
maybe things get little different for u who study/frequent to US/Europe where Serene would save much of your trouble to get ppl with ur name.. =)
SUET LI MY CHINESE NAME IS ONE LETTER OFF FROM ‘YEE SANG’ OK.
I’m called Curry, Charliebug, Jetli, Chilli & etc by my friends. I find them kinda amusing though. haha. I like the name Suet! Probably only those who know how to pronounce it find it nice and whenever I thought of visiting your website, Suet Li comes to my mind and not Sweat Lee (but luckily I can still remember your blog url though!)
Cheer up!
Dont worry.. My name is Vince and I am a girl.. Remember the story I told you?
at least its suet li and not suet ting
or it could be SHI TING!
my sister’s name is suet teng wtf she’ll be so mad at u!!!
i can relate very much not with my first name as its really normal but to my surname.
i used to be very self conscious about my surname (merican) and i used to get teased a lot about it all through my school years. what to do? malaysian kids find everything unusual funny. when i was really young i used to hate it but i’ve grown to accept it as it actually looks alright to me when i write down my full name. now that i study abroad no one here actually makes fun of my name at all which i thought they would find weird.
my mom used to work at my elem sch, and everyone would hear her say yosie but then they would call me yoshi and say hey where’s mario -_-
i still never give my name when people ask like starbucks or something. i wonder if they even notice when they look at my credit card.
i really thought your name is sweat lee all these while.. lol..
i feel your pain. i have a really awkward name too. whenever someone asks whats my name. id hesitate to tell them because i know they either dont know how to pronounce it, or pronounce it wrongly. -.-”. so i just made up a name for myself. sigh.
hi PELUH. does that mean u’re always wet? HAHAHAHAHHA wtf
hi PELUH. does that mean u’re always wet? HAHAHAHAHHA wtf
i think serene sounds nice! serene would look fair and pretty! you are fair and pretty
my chinese name is hui xxxx, and i study in russia. Hui in russia means penis… FML
Man, I can really relate to this post!
Imagine having a name called Guo Zhang and the chinese speaking people start assuming you’re from China and start gabbling in Mandarin when you know absolutely no Mandarin.
And the rest of the world mispronounces it to Gua, Go, Goo and all sorts of perversion of the actual pronunciation.
Then telling people the name is Zhang raises even more similarities to Zhang Ziyi. AAARGH.
Totally feeling your pain.
my name is the worse man, first it was Mona Lisa only, then after the menteri or whoever kena cincang it was Mona Fandey, and everyone will ask me if I know that Mona Lisa song, then they will SING the song, I tell you, everyone does this wan, the librarian when they look at my student card they will ask me whether I know Mona Fandey or the Mona Lisa song, when I sat for my driver’s license the instructor asked me the same thing, when I went to renew my IC HAIH all the time one la, until when people don’t ask I almost feel disappointed in mankind wtf
Oh ya and I remember on rtm or something last time there was this anti-dadah campaign, this guy had sex with a prostitute or something, you know la rtm’s idea of prostitute must wear leather miniskirt and fishnet stockings and red high heels wtf and her name was MONA ok so I super kena at school the next day wtf
Dun worry la, everyone kena this sort of thing once in a while, when I was in school there was this guy called Heikal, we call him Basikal wtf And this girl called Wan Something so we will go like “Hi! Wan!” wtf damn lame rite
So ya, Suet Li is a nice name ok! At least not associated with a murderer who wore ugly leggings fml
I can so totally understand how it feels. =( I tell people my name is Ping Ping and they’ll give me “come-on” face and ask me for my real name. IT IS PING PING.
My surname is Ch’ng and my teachers used to call me Ching Ping Ping, for their convenience. And I always get teased like Ping Pong - plus im round =(
And the other day I went to the clinic and the MA called me, Ch’ng Ping Pong. I stared at him with my eyes wide open and he seemed selamba. Then he turned to check the screen and say ‘Oh, Ch’ng Ping Ping. Sorry, got other people call you wrongly before?’ T___T
Now my friends keep calling me ‘pong!!’ Sigh, what to do? My sis’s name is Pao Pao, poor her, I think she got it worse.
I think Suet is a nice name honestly! reminds me of snow immediately XD
Nice post. I hope you continue writing such good stuff
cure excessive sweating T________T FML T________T
I like the layout of your blog and I’m going to do the same thing for mine. Do you have any tips? Please PM ME on yahoo @ AmandaLovesYou702
I go by SUET too! Once I was working and this guy asked me for my name, he was like Suet as in sweating? Then I said Suet Yi, and he was like ok, that sounds like shit you !!!!
PFSTTTT.
SUET is an awesome name laaaaa…..
P/S: Im a junior in the states too!