Kim today, with the book that taught her all the wrong things to say
Her name was Yuk-Fong. That was the problem. Except I didn't know it was a problem, which was another problem.
It was my first day of school in America. I was 12 and had just moved from Seoul, South Korea, to a suburb of Baltimore. Yuk-Fong, a refugee from Vietnam, was the only other student in my English as a Second Language class.
"Yuk-Fong—what a beautiful name," our ESL teacher said. "Am I saying it right? Yuk? Fong? Some may not appreciate the musicality of those lovely syllables, Yuk and Fong, together, if you see what I mean." (I spoke only a few words of English at this point, so what I actually heard was "Yuk-Fong. Blah, blah. Blah, blah, blah? Yuk? Fong? Blah Yuk, blah Fong, blah, blah.")
I had no idea why our teacher (whose name I wrote down only as Mrs. P) spent our first class saying Yuk-Fong's name over and over, looking into her eyes and smoothing her hair. My name, Angela, on the other hand, she said only once. At the end of the class, I did what any reasonable preteen girl would do under the circumstances: I decided to hate Mrs. P and Yuk-Fong.
My intense jealousy of Yuk-Fong festered over the next week as I noticed that the students seemed taken with her as well. "Hi, Yuk-Fong. Bye, Yuk-Fong," they smiled and said so loudly as they passed her in the hallway. Ignored, I felt invisible, like Cinderella's ugly stepsister, who I was growing to realize had been terribly misunderstood.
All that changed a month into school. A cute ninth-grade boy came up to Yuk-Fong and said, "Is your name Yuk-Fong or F—k-Young?" She just looked at him, silent. I didn't understand but figured she was paralyzed by the prospect of talking to such a popular boy. So I swooped in to help. "Her name: Yuk-Fong," I said, enunciating each syllable. He frowned at me as if figuring out a difficult equation in his head, then said in slow, enunciated words, "F—k. Yoo."
I shook my head and said, "F—k, no. Yoo, no. Yuk-Fong."
He shook his head as if the conversation were too hard for him to attempt again, then walked away.
I wondered if I had embarrassed him, correcting him in front of everyone like that. Did he have a speech impediment or memory issues? Maybe I should apologize.