How To Impress Your Vietnamese Date

Posted on April 16, 2008
Filed Under Life, Online Dating |

Yesterday happened to be our first real “tax day” as X & Y Communications LLC, which was exacerbated by the fact that some myopic bonehead (namely me) decided that Power Sessions For Men programs should come out on the 15th of the month.

So with all of that now in the rear view mirror, I can’t think of a better time for a particularly lightweight blog post given all this talk about breakups lately.

Last night I got the kind of e-mail I particularly love to read: Someone else is succeeding at online dating more than ever before.

This time, a guy wrote me attaching the profile of a particularly attractive hottie who happens to be Vietnamese. And wow, she seems full of life, energy, compassion and feminine charm–a nearly perfect combination out of which to craft a woman’s personality, I’d say.

Her name is Thuy.

Having worked with Vietnamese kids back in the early years of my career as a life coach to teens, I suggested that my friend knock this woman’s sox off (presumably red, since they’re Bostonians) by telling her in his follow-up e-mail that it’s time to talk on the phone, especially since he bets he can pronounce her name correctly.

If you say Twee, as if Elmer Fudd referring to a tree, you’d pass such a test yourself. Even better is Tu-WEE. Either way, my friend will successfully bestow upon Thuy what she loves most to hear if she’s like any other red-blooded human being: the sound of her name.

Knowing how irritating it is to have one’s name spelled wrong, I can only imagine what it’s like to have one’s name aurally butchered as ruthlessly as Thuy’s must have been over the years.

My friend can’t lose by pronouncing her name right. He’s in.

Hell, based on her e-mail she appears to already be completely enthralled by him anyway. And the best time to improve your game is when you are on top of it.

So best wishes to those two when the “Iron Chef battle” takes place in his kitchen, as lifted from my sample profile in Online Dating Domination.

But all the while, I couldn’t help but reminded of a story–one that’ll be twenty years old later this year.

Back at the very start of my career working with high-schoolers I knew a Vietnamese kid, illustriously named “Phuc That”.

As Dave Barry would say, “I promise I’m not making this up”.

He and his parents were fresh off the boat (or “FOB” in their own cultural vernacular). I actually took another kid with me to meet his parents, and we tried to explain to them, with the kid as interpreter, the potential brouhaha to be brought about by his name in this country.

I’ll never forget that meeting.

Being very young and ready to save the world at the time (and the only thing that has changed since, by the way, is that twenty years have passed) I remember feeling as if I was performing a public service of monumental importance, even while trying to be respectful of cultural pride and the possible deep significance of the kid’s name as given by his parents.

As fortune would have it, both Phuc (say “Fook”) and his parents were quite alarmed by our information. Perhaps almost as alarmed (or alternately amused) as Phuc noted that people had been by his name since his arrival in the States a couple of weeks prior.

Perhaps ironically, the kid ended up going by “Frank”, which turned out to result in only a Pyrrhic victory since his last name was actually pronounced “Chat”.

So the “serious talk” I had with the kids parents resulted in a “Frank Chat”…literally.

Well, it beat the alternative, I suppose.

The moral of the story, if you really must find dating advice in here somewhere, is that if you enjoy dating people from different cultures–which can be a total blast–a great way to start is by making sure you have read up on their customs a bit. And by all means learn how to pronounce names correctly. It matters immensely.

Be Good,

Scot McKay

P.S. Next time, another video blog…

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3 Comments

Comment by Leah Gray aka creativeblogger

2008-04-16 08:09:57

I dated a Vietnamese guy quite a while ago. I wrote about him in article called ‘Mr Chipolata’. I don’t think that requires further elaboration. Meanwhile interesting read and yes recalling names is always very important.

 

Comment by Scot McKay

2008-04-16 08:14:56

OK, well first of all mad kudos for setting a brand-new world speed record for commenting on a blog post. That article had been up about five minutes.

Something told me this one would bring a comment or two. Cheers!

 

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• Scot McKay is a professional dating coach and founder of X & Y Communications.

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