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thatsnotmyname

OPINIONSocietyJanuary 13, 2022

That’s not my name

thatsnotmyname

It’s OK if you initially think my name is pronounced ‘Abby’ – but when I politely correct you, please listen.

Recently, when I asked someone their name, they chose to spell it out for me before telling me what it was. I smiled and nodded in understanding, then did the same. “A-b-h-i, pronounced: Ah-bee.”

“Is that your full name?’’ they asked.

Well, actually it’s Abhirami Kanagalingam… but I don’t have 20 minutes to spell it two or three times, break it down into syllables and explain how to pronounce it, so just call me Abhi.

Most Malaysian Indians and Sri Lankans do not have family names. Instead, children inherit their father’s given name at birth and use it alongside a name chosen by their parents. Growing up, my mother would tell me how much thought and love went into her picking “Abhirami” for me: “I wanted something traditional that also sounded musical.” She told me that I share a name with a powerful Hindu goddess. But because I was at an age when I thought I knew everything, my mother’s heartwarming story didn’t change how I felt. My insecurities began at school in Malaysia when my classmates took “Abhirami” and turned it into Abhi-babi. Babi is the Malay word for pig.

When I moved to Aotearoa for university, I realised my name would make me a target in different ways. Being “Abhirami Kanagalingam” meant people often made assumptions about my race and identity. Once, on a booked-out Malaysian Airlines flight to Kuala Lumpur, two young white men decided it would be funny to make me the butt of their alcohol-fueled racist jokes for the entire duration of the flight. They were on their way to Bali, and I had the misfortune of sitting next to them. It all started when a crew member came up to me and said (with perfect pronunciation): “Abhirami Kanagalingam, your Hindu meal will be with you shortly.” I felt an embarrassing heat creeping up my neck as I cursed myself for ordering the Hindu meal. Why couldn’t I have just accepted the fish or chicken? The men giggled, and in what I think their version of an Indian accent was, twisted my name into obscene variations while laughing at the vegetarian curry I was eating. It was the kind of carefree, thoughtless bullying that can only come from not knowing what it is like to be at the receiving end of racism.

I was traveling alone and too afraid to stand up for myself. I sat in silence, upset and embarrassed.

After university, when applying for jobs, I was told to change my name so HR wouldn’t throw my CV into the ”foreign pile” before even looking at it. I had to adapt, and adapting meant being more European. I shortened Abhirami to Abhi and started using my family name: Chinniah. But that still didn’t feel like enough. In interviews and subsequent jobs, I’d tell employers Abhi was pronounced Abby. Abhi – my name, and my identity – was hidden behind “Abby” for nearly five years. I’d buy bottles of Coke, bitter that no one was going to share a Coke with me because I wasn’t Jane or Sarah. I’d send passive-aggressive replies to people who despite seeing my email sign-off and even having met me in person still typed ‘’Ahbi’’ or “Arbi’’. I loathed having to spell my full legal name out on the phone, and then repeat myself two or three times when the person I was talking to missed a letter. I was angry that I had to be Abby to fit in.

Then one day I had enough and stopped introducing myself as Abby. My true self, the self that I was so desperately trying to hide, was pushing its way to the surface. And because I saw who I was, I wanted everyone else to see it too. I started correcting people when they said my name wrong. “It’s Abhi, pronounced Ah-bee.” It is not Abby. It is not Arbi. With this newfound self-respect also came a determination to give others the same courtesy – making sure my spelling and pronunciation were correct, and listening closely when introductions were made.

Maitreyi Ramakrishnan as Devi Vishwakumar in Never Have I Ever. (Photo: Netflix)

As we slowly move into the territory of knowing better and respecting different cultures, mispronouncing long ”foreign” names could one day become a thing of the past. Last year Maitreyi Ramakrishnan, the young star of the Netflix show Never Have I Ever posted a Twitter voice note about how much she loves her name and why it’s important to her that it’s pronounced correctly. She recounted how she used to not correct people who mispronounced “Maitreyi” because she didn’t want to inconvenience them, but now makes sure her name is said the right way. She followed up the voice note with a tweet: “Let’s make sure we remember that names have power. Pronounce people’s names the way they want it to be pronounced and put in the effort. So hey! My name is Maitreyi /my-tray-yee/”.

That is the kind of confidence I aspire to have.

When well-known people like Maitreyi Ramakrishnan stand up for their beliefs and wholly embrace who they are it can pave a way forward for the rest of us. If I decide to give my future children traditional Tamil names, I hope those names will be met with kindness and acceptance. The kind of acceptance I’ve spent half my life searching for.

Months ago, I tried to join my local community Facebook group and my request was declined. Bewildered, I messaged one of the admins to ask why and they said it was because my location was not on my Facebook profile. This might have made sense except that my Pākehā husband, who also didn’t have his location on his profile, was accepted without any questions. Why was this?

In response, the admin said something that summed it all up: we can only judge based on what we see. They nailed it! They didn’t see me – the Kiwi Asian who just wanted to join the local Facebook group for the area where I’d recently moved house. They saw a dark-skinned woman with a strange name and assumed I didn’t live in their neighbourhood. And I know this because they saw my husband’s profile, saw someone they thought of as already part of the local community, and welcomed him with open arms. I eventually got over the sting, but haven’t forgotten it.

What’s in a name anyway? Well, to me, it is a lot of things. It is your culture, heritage, ancestry, a foundation for who you are, or who you want to be. Names should be treated with respect, no matter how confusingly long they might be, or how comical they seem to idiots on a plane. If I can go out of my way to respect someone else’s name, can’t everyone?

Nowadays “Abhirami Kanagalingam” is an important part of my identity. Long, beautiful roots that began in Jaffna Sri Lanka found their way to Malaysia and have anchored themselves in Aotearoa. But I am also Abhi, and it’s really nice to meet you.

What’s your name?

Keep going!
A jandal under fire (Image: Tina Tiller)
A jandal under fire (Image: Tina Tiller)

SocietyJanuary 13, 2022

Are jandals dead?

A jandal under fire (Image: Tina Tiller)
A jandal under fire (Image: Tina Tiller)

The humble jandal is no longer on every New Zealander’s feet. Madeleine Chapman mourns a classic.

I never thought I’d feel a pang of nostalgia at the sight of jandals. They were supposed to be part of Aotearoa’s summer scenery forever, like pōhutukawa and wraparounds – neither intrusive nor noteworthy. But this summer I have kept my eyes peeled for a flat piece of rubber out in the wild and come up disappointed time and time again. Where did jandals go? Having once held a monopoly on the open-toed summer shoe market here, jandals have been overrun by competitors seemingly overnight. Now they are but one of a dozen (often superior) options.

The jandal’s greatest strength has become its downfall: they’ve never been cool or fashionable. Don’t bother looking, there’s not a single version of a jandal that is fashionable. That’s not to say that people haven’t worn them in close proximity to fashion, but proximity is all it is. Jandals are like bike helmets. They serve an important purpose and therefore manufacturers have long since given up making them look good. And if you think you’ve seen a fashionable jandal, what you’ve seen is a sandal.

But that’s the joy of it. Jandals are an equaliser. Millionaires wore the same jandals (Havaianas, never black and never with the thin strap) as me, a 13-year-old. We were all equal on the same hot sand. Now millionaires wear $220 Arizona Birkenstocks or $160 Tevas. But it’s not just residents of Herne Bay embracing an encased yet open toe. Everyone’s into Birkenstocks, Crocs are inexplicably on every corner and slides have exploded beyond sports changing rooms.

The usurper: Crocs are taking the place once held by the humble jandal

Here’s a fun fact: the word “jandal” is trademarked in New Zealand after being coined by a New Zealand man (which New Zealand man is up for debate and, honestly, irrelevant). The word is a mash-up of “Japanese” and “sandal”. The word jandal will live forever, cemented to this place and this place alone, superior to “flip flop” and the cursed “thong”. In typing that sentence I have just now realised that the two thongs are actually linguistically related as both meaning a narrow restraint. Wow.

Personally, I have always been staunchly team jandal. Why fix something that’s not broken? And even if it is broken, just use a bread tab. Every second summer as my feet grew I would find someone, usually a sister, to buy me a new pair of Havaianas. The colours! I had some stunners: lily-pad green, hot pink, tropical sea blue, shocking yellow, and most recently fluoro orange. Havaianas were my brand of choice because they wouldn’t break when I ran in them. I could sprint as fast in jandals as I could in running shoes.

The only purchase I made on my trip to Japan as a teenager was a multi-pack of socks designed specifically to be worn with jandals. As in, the big toe had its own sleeve. I had been ruining socks for years wearing them with jandals and now I had the solution. I spent $40 (the entirety of my spending money as a 16-year-old on a sports trip that was otherwise fully funded) and came home with four pairs of the greatest socks I’d ever worn.

All of my basketball team mates graduated to slides around then for after games when your feet are soaked in sweat and need air but you don’t want to take your socks off to leave the stadium. I resisted, instead sliding my weird toe socks into my jandals and waltzing on out.

I never thought that jandals looked good, I just thought all competitors looked equally bad and jandals were my preferred bad aesthetic. But then everyone decided that socks and slides were cool. And Birkenstocks were cool. And now Crocs are cool. And weird hybrid platform sandals are cool. Everything ugly is cool now, except jandals.

There are some who will never ever change. I went to a movie in the middle of winter two years ago and my friend showed up in jandals, stubbies and a Swanndri – a walking caricature. He’d also gone to Countdown for snacks beforehand (smart) and brought along a bag of 12 snack-sized Crunchie bars to eat throughout the movie (unhinged). But his status as a local hero remains despite that hiccup, and I know without asking that he’s still wearing jandals nearly every day.

For me, well, my jandals barely see the sun. In 2021 I cracked. Throughout the last lockdown I bought many things online just to feel the little burst of joy at receiving a package. One such purchase was a pair of blue velcro sandals (“extremely ugly”, I said at the time) that were 92% off. I wanted to test out this new world without investing too much financially. The sandals were chunky and felt like clown shoes compared to my sleek jandals and they gave me blisters, so I had no intention of wearing them outside the house. But they got a truly astounding number of compliments from people around me. Everyone loved the ugly sandals.

Three weeks later I ordered my first pair of slides. Annoyingly, they worked immediately and didn’t look as weird with my work clothes (which are admittedly still very casual) as my jandals always did. I even wore them with socks and it was… fine. Now I’m looking at Birkenstocks online. I am consumerism’s star pupil. There are so many options now. Showing one’s toes isn’t simply the unfortunate byproduct of hot weather and jandals any more. It’s a fashion choice.

My orange jandals are still in my room. I wear them sometimes when I’m cooking or pottering around the house. And when I leave the house – usually in my slides – I don’t see them out on the street. I see buckles and straps and foam and leather. Like cockroaches, jandals will live forever and maybe one day they’ll return to their place at the top of the ugly footwear pyramid. But for now I say farewell to my rubber friends, may we meet again some day.