Asian Invasion

“Hey what’s your name?”

“Sarith”

“Shireeth?”

“No Sar, as in Sir, and ith as in eef.”

“Oohh, so Sairith!”

“Yeah, sure.”

Many have pronounced my name wrong from elementary school to middleschool. I’m usually called Alex at home around my neighborhood, but when I went to elementary, my dad had said my name was “Sarith.” I never knew about that. My dad never told me my first name, before and after, I just lived with it.

I have a lisp, and it affects the way I say my name. I sometimes pronounce my own name as “Shirith”, or “shireeth”, but I was able to take my time and fix it. I was sometimes afraid to talk since I had a lisp.

“Hey my name is Sarith”

“Hey shirift”

“SARRR RITHHH, as in SIRR REEF, not SHIRRR REEFF”

“Ohhh, sorry”

“It’s fine, happens all the time”

I was talking to a friend that I still am in contact today, although he doesn’t call me Sarith anymore, he calls me Chewy or Alex. I got the name Chewy from 5th grade. My math teacher was saying the names of the students, and when she got to mine, instead of saying Chuon which is pronounced Chu like “chu chu!” and on like turning something on, she said Chewy. After a week, everyone in my school called me Chewy. I was fine with that, as it made me more popular.I was even the favorite student in the school. My principal and Vice-Principal told me I was going to get an award for “Favorite Student”, but it shut down before I even graduated from 8th grade. Back to the story, I sometimes don’t care how I speak, but if I speak too fast, I don't even know what I'm saying. So I just take a deep breath and say it over again. I remember I used to get picked on for talking weird.

“Ahhhhhahahahaah, you speak with your tongue!”

“Aren’t you suppose to speak with your tongue?”

“You use your tongue on every word, you sound like you have a lot of saliva in your mouth.”

At that time, I was only in 6th grade, and I started to wonder how I spoke. I went on my computer and used a microphone I had and spoke, and listened to how I sounded. I noticed how weird I sounded. For some odd reason, when I speak regularly, I can hear myself speaking just as fine as everyone else. However, when I hear through a recording, I can definitely hear the lisp.

I always wanted an intimidating voice, like a deep voice or a voice that can tell someone not to mess with this guy. I’ve known people who have voices that can be easily identified. I mean, I can easily pick on the easy things about the person just through their voice. Sometimes they can be shy, with a rocky voice, or someone who tries to not be shy by trying to force their voice to be louder. I’ve noticed that our President, Barack Obama, has an interesting voice. His voice seems as though he’s intelligent, and knows what he’s doing. Some people can get jobs easily with voices. Let's say you have a really squeaky voice, and I mean a REALLY squeaky voice. There are jobs where they’ll just ask you questions, but know that they’ll decline you right after the interview (if there is one). Although, if you have a deep voice the chance will probably increase by a few percent maybe 2-5% because some jobs probably have “rude customers/clients” and if you have a deep voice, high chance they don’t want to mess with you. Therefore, wishing myself to have an intimidating voice.

Around now, I just don’t really know about how I speak. I also develop some new slangs such as “Mein, Mang (made those 2 up myself), Noodle, etc…” I never really use slangs much because I think they’re stupid, but I still tend to use them like “Jawn.” I sometimes use the word without knowing, probably from living in philly. From all the people who judged me from the way I speak, I just don’t care. I mean everyone talks differently but I honestly don’t care of the way I speak. It’s true that I want to try to speak so you won’t hear any lisp, but if I can’t, then that’s that. I can’t help it, it’s the way I speak.

I also remembered how I stutter sometimes when talking or ordering something. I don’t know why but I always feel pressured when ordering something. When I’m pressured, my voice is shaky, and I stutter a lot. When I speak, I sometimes try to listen to myself and see if i’m stuttering, check if my voice is shaky, or if I am speaking with a lisp. I always try to see if I’m talking in these ways but remember, I still try to not care about it. I always wondered if there was a way to clear a lisp, but I never decide to research about it or anything. I’ve heard that braces can help you speak more “normal” or speak without a lisp but I never asked my dentist about that. Maybe in the future I’ll ACTUALLY try to clear my lisp, and not be pressured trying to order something or have a shaky voice.