Sunday, April 10, 2011

And I thought my name was bad....

Date: 3/11/2011

This post came about because I ran into a guy this weekend who introduced himself as "Hi.  My name is Laef.  But my Korean Name is Joe."  I had never heard of a foreigner having a Korean name.  Korean students take English names...but I had never heard of the opposite.

It turns out that I don't have the worst English name in Korea.

As you might now, my name in Korean means Catfish.  I actually spend five minutes every 1st day of class explaining to my students that I am not "the Fish teacher."  I run up and down the aisles in my class yelling, "Bulgogi Sasenim!"  (Fish teacher, fish teacher!)  It gets a lot of giggles and we then spend a few minutes listening and repeating: "M-AH-ggie."  (not M-eh-ggie)

Well, I met a man this weekend who has a worse name.  His name is Laef.  (Like the 80's child star singer superstar).  His name doesn't have a Korean translation--the sad? funny? part of his name is how Koreans try to pronounce his name.   They turn the "F" into "P" and then the "L" to an "R".

[giving you a second to figure it out...]

Yep, that's right.  He is "Rape Teacher."

I would pick another name too....

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