Nobody knows my name
I received a distressing SMS message last night. It read as follows:
Max: Tonight when you look at the starry sky you’ll know… someone think of you through the starlight…
Max? Who on earth is this Max? The message came from an unknown number, but whoever sent it doesn’t know me well enough to actually know what my name is. But this isn’t the first time this has happened. There are a number of people in Thailand who think my name is Mark, including my landlady. For two years the girls in my local 7-Eleven cried, “Mark! Where are you going?” every time I went in to buy a bag of crisps. I never had the heart to tell them my name is Matt.
I find it quite amusing to think that across Thailand I’m several different people. Perhaps there is someone out there thinking of Max, someone thinking of Mark, but is anyone thinking of Matt?
June 24th, 2007 at 11:23 am
Good question! Oh, and, “someone think of you through the starlight”? Seriously? LOL.
June 24th, 2007 at 12:12 pm
I’m thinking of you, Mandy.
Or is it Michelle?
June 24th, 2007 at 7:48 pm
Mark, Matt, Max, Mac all sounds the same to a regular Thai ear. You won’t tell the difference unless you ask them to actually spell it for you.
June 24th, 2007 at 9:27 pm
I think of my poor sister-in-law, Huong, who regularly gets called “Hung” (a boy’s name), “Hoe-ong,” and “Hyung” because people cannot pronounce the VNese diphthong. I am called praw-ya, pray-a, pry-a, but very rarely preee-ya, which is the actual pronunciation of my name! You are not alone. Of course, no one sends me romantic text messages :(
June 25th, 2007 at 1:36 am
Gee, such a message! I’ve never had a text message like that. It’s enough to make me consider buying a cell phone.
It always amuses me how people call me Chain-ee, Chah-nee… never Chah Nee .. which is how it should be pronounced.
Just like two separate words.
And, yes, I know that probably means something horrid in Thai. :) (Thai people call me Chana.)