How to Pronounce My Name.

 Prompt: Think about one aspect of your identity. This can be your name, a common family practice, a value, belief, cultural practice, or an item that shapes your identity. Write about this for ten minutes and reflect on how it shapes who you are as an individual. 

“Yin?” 

What? Are they referring to me? It was awkward--the prolonged moment of silence (which probably felt much longer than it actually was), my eyes searching frantically, skimming the names and faces on my laptop screen to ensure I wasn’t the only one who heard it wrong, and the hesitation in my voice as I finally pressed the unmute button and replied, “here”. 

As you may or may not already know, my name is Yeowoon. Not sure how you might’ve read that but I’m assuming your pronunciation was off (not blaming you or anything).     

I’ve grown up with people constantly mispronouncing my name, though I don’t really blame them. It's not your typical, easy-to-pronounce English name (I can see Google Docs agrees, as it's highlighting my name with a red, squiggly underline). 

Matter of fact, even every single one of my friends doesn't call me by the correct pronunciation of my name. They’ve each asked me how to pronounce it right, but I always tell them I prefer their “incorrect” pronunciation. Why? Well, a) I don’t think every single person I meet will be able to pronounce my name perfectly, simply because of speech differences in language b) I value the interpretations of my name specific to each individual I meet. I’ve heard so many different versions that I don’t think I could list all of them here. I don’t behave the same way around everyone; the way people perceive me differs from person to person. The same can be said about my name. I like thinking about how the way others pronounce my name is a part of their perception of me, and that these are unique to each relationship I have with them. 

When I was in elementary and middle school, I used to get embarrassed whenever people would announce my name in public because I didn’t want to have to correct them every time. Therefore I never bothered to, afraid it would be just as much of a burden for them to have to correct themselves as it was for me to point it out. Thinking about it now, I don’t really know why it felt so embarrassing to walk up to my tennis coach and simply say, “my name is actually pronounced Yeowoon, not Yewon” (I’m not even sure that’s the exact way they pronounced it). It was even more embarrassing when I had to correct someone more than once. My art teacher (whom I appreciate greatly) still (respectfully) butchers my name to this day, despite my multiple attempts to correct her. I like the way she says my name though--definitely one of the more interesting pronunciations (not sarcasm), which might say something about my relationship with her. Up to your interpretation. 

There was a point in my life where I became very stingy about people mispronouncing my name, and the embarrassment turned into annoyance. It started to irritate me when I would be having a good time learning about geometry, one of the few math subjects that genuinely interests me, and then I suddenly hear, “Yaywoon, what was your answer for problem 12?”. Not that people constantly referring to me for answers just for the sake of getting the answer without trying the problem for themselves annoyed me (now this is sarcasm, if that wasn’t clear enough).

The annoyance eventually turned into indifference as I started to accept that not every single person would be able to pronounce my name correctly, even with the utmost effort to say the “woon” part as more of a “eun” or the “yeo” as “yeuh”. Korean can be hard, I know. After trying to see mispronunciations of my name as a positive thing--as representations of the differences in other’s perspectives of me and our relationships--I’ve started to appreciate my name and value the original korean pronunciation of it more and more. All the mispronunciations are a significant part of what my name means to me. Sure, I’ll still correct people, but I understand and acknowledge not everyone will say my name correctly, to the point where I even prefer the mispronunciations because it feels more fitting.   

Though I still don’t get how “Yeowoon” reads as “Yin”.