Students login with their nickname handles for a warm-up game.

Gift from one of my students.

To Do list:

Go to the bank, buy a toy for my niece, speak to a guy about a paint job for my Porsche. 

Then I looked at the student roster and noticed the following names:

• Bank
• Toy
• Guy
• Paint
• Porsche

I begin roll call: “Oh.” Silence. “Oh?”

A boy with a confused expression pops his head up and raises his hand. “Are you Oh?” He nods.

“Prim?” A girl with perfectly tight braids raises her hand.

“Milk? Cream? Ice?” At one point I wondered if I were reading the ingredients for a smoothie.

The majority of my Thai students used western nicknames that would be considered odd and downright unfortunate in the US. They ranged from mundane household items to brand name labels. Boys were usually nicknamed Bank, Ice, Guy or Porsche. Girls went by Kitty, Milk and Cream.

Androgynous names included Toy or Bomb. Some went by initials such as FC (football club), CD (compact disc, or certificate of deposit), and unfortunately, BM (self-explanatory). Most chose nouns, but one student registered as Yummy.

One female student signed in with the name Tity. I constantly reminded myself to pronounce it as “tidy” and not rhyme it with “pity” with a “t”. 

After a while, encountering their nicknames became normalized, and I ceased to find it awkward to refer to my students as household items. However, I did have some mix ups. In one class, as I presented a set of vocabulary words, one boy raised his hand to answer my question.

“Great job Swerve! Class, did everyone hear that? Swerve gave us the correct answer,” I gushed with praise.

One girl, named Honey, giggled and said, “Teacher, that’s not his name!”

“It’s not?” I asked, “what’s your name?”

The boy replied, “Teacher, my name is Dew.”

Ah, right: “Swerve” was the vocabulary word, Dew was my student, Honey was also my student, honeydew was a fruit, mama were ramen noodles, and 12:00pm was lunchtime. Class dismissed.

School parade during a monsoon thunder storm.

Swimmers on the way to the pool for physical education period.

Nothing about school, but I noticed these popsicles imported from Korea. Chocolate covered pork-flavored ice cream…