Written by 홍기혜
As usual in the afternoon, I was on the bus waiting through the hour long ride to my house. We were around the tenth stop when one of the most outspoken people on the bus was hit by an urgent question: What was her name in another language? I mean, it makes sense, right? Apple is different in French and Latin and Spanish, so why not names? So she took upon herself a most vital mission: To find out her name in a different language.
There are several people of different ethnicities on our bus. Hispanic, Asian, Indian, so on. The girl, Chelsea, took it upon herself to interrogate these poor victims—I mean, fellow school bus riders.
“You! What are you?” She demanded rather rudely of a Hispanic boy.
“Um, Hispanic?” The boy muttered in a heavy accent, taken back by the out of the blue query.
“Okay, Mexican, what’s my name in Spanish?” She asked.
“Uhh…..” The unfortunate boy paused, muddled by the rapid-fire inquiries.
Chelsea moved on, unwilling to wait for an answer when there were so many more fish in the sea ready to be caught and grilled.
“You! What are you?” Chelsea turned to an Asian girl.
“I am Chinese.” The girl replied in a thick accent.
“What’s my name in Chinese?”
The girl was slightly more quick witted than the boy and hurriedly got in,
“What is your name?”
“Chelsea.” Chelsea impatiently said.
“Ahhh…..” The girl hesitated, unsure of how to reply.
This continued along the rest of the “foreigners” on the bus, and, as I am Korean American, I waited for my turn to be probed. I was looking forward to it; the way Chelsea had treated the people had irritated me to no end.
“You! What are you?” Chelsea demanded of me.
“A human being. Female.” I retorted.
As everyone on the bus had been amusedly observing Chelsea’s hunt for her name in a different language, my response was hailed by laughter.
“No, no, I mean, where are you from?” Chelsea valiantly tried to continue. Unluckily for her, I wasn’t in a very cooperative mood.
“Austin, Texas. You know, in the USA?” I sarcastically answered.
People were eagerly watching the match, especially the ones that were unable to respond under Chelsea’s rude questioning.
Now Chelsea was the one unable to come back with a rejoinder.
“Errr……”
A small stirring of pity prompted me to say,
“Ethnicity?” I suggested.
“Yeah! Uh, ethni, ethinith, ethnithy?” Chelsea tried to say.
Another roar of laughter came from the avidly watching audience. A few more scholarly students helped her.
“Ethnicity!” They said.
“Yeah, that thing.”
“I’m Asian.” I answered.
Chelsea groaned.
The audience hooted and assisted her.
“She means where did your parents come from!”
“You know, Chinese, Japanese?”
“My parents were born in Korea.” I replied.
“Finally.” Chelsea sighed in relief. “What’s my name in Korean?”
The spectators waited with bated breath as I responded.
“Chelsea.”
“What?” Chelsea asked confusedly.
“Chelsea. That’s your name in Korean. Your name doesn’t change in different languages.”
The questionees relievedly started backing me up.
“Yeah, Chelsea…”
“That’s it. That’s your name.”
“Chelsea.”
The Chinese girl had a thick accent, remember? So when she said Chelsea, it sounded more like “Chal-shee”.
Chelsea swooped down on the hapless girl like a hawk on some mouse.
“What did you say?” She shrieked excitedly.
“Chelsea?” The girl worriedly repeated.
“That’s my name in Chinese! Chal-shee!”
Chelsea went off into raptures of delight, while the rest of us exchanged looks. Then she started ranting about how ugly is sounded.
“God, why did my *beep* parents give me such a *beep* ugly *beep* name in Chinese?” Chelsea raved.
The rest of us just stared bemusedly at each other before letting Chelsea continue with her delusion for the rest of the ride.
The end.
