Call me Ray, not Ping Pong: From a Chinese-Thai-American

“Lotta… pong… pee suit? What a long last name! What country are you from? How do you pronounce that?” 

This is essentially what I’ve heard upon meeting a new person throughout my life. It’s almost impossible to avoid questions when my last name looks like an alien combining random, nonsensical words together, especially compared to people with short, nice, and simple last names such as “Li” or “Chen.” I’ve always hated how long it takes to write out on a sheet of paper, especially when I struggled to bubble every single individual letter on an AP scantron. I hated when my teachers got mad at me for writing the initial “L” as my last name on tests, as if they had the authority to define my identity for me. I hated how weird it was to pronounce, especially with the ending sounding like “pee suit,” evoking a comical image. Most of all, I’ve always hated people’s curiosity concerning my last name, because I didn’t know much about the name either, and neither did my parents.

My dad didn’t have that last name when he grew up between the mountains of Chiang Mai and the breezy, light green palm trees of Bangkok, Thailand. When I recently asked him about his childhood, he told me that his last name for his entire childhood and adolescence was “Lee,” because his parents were Teochew people from China. He was not Thai by blood, but he was by culture. When he was an adult, however, he decided to change his last name to something more Thai, something to fit in with the sea of long Thai last names. He told me that it was tradition for Chinese immigrants in Thailand to change their last name to better assimilate into Thai society. He told me, “I consulted a professor who specialized in literature or something like that, I can’t recall perfectly.” I still didn’t fully understand the story, though.

“So what does the name mean?” I asked.

“Uhh… I think it means purity, or something like that?” he replied.

“It probably doesn’t have a meaning,” my mom interjected.

That made me annoyed—you’re telling me I could’ve had a last name as short as Lee, but he went with something as long as Lattapongpisut? I understood that he wanted to assimilate more into Thai society, but I didn’t understand why he would choose a name that literally nobody else in this world has—a name he didn’t understand with a meaning that he would forget in a few decades anyway. It didn’t make sense to me why he wanted to get rid of a name that was as simple and as easy to pronounce as “Lee,” and it hurt knowing that the last name was made to benefit him, yet made my life harder.

Even though my heart was American and my blood Chinese, I knew my heritage was Thai. So when I reluctantly responded to people with “I’m from Thailand,” sometimes they had follow-up questions, or sometimes they would guess my country instead of letting me respond.

“Oh! Oh! Let me guess: Are you Chinese? Or Filipino? Or Indonesian?” I recall some people asking.

And beyond the questions about my origins were the questions about the sheer length of my last name.

“How do you pronounce it?” I recall almost everyone asking.

“Can I call you Ray Ping Pong?” I recall my Global Studies classmate asking.

“Hi, Ray Lattapingpong,” I recall my AP European History classmate teasing me.

I hate all of these questions and comments, some more than others. I appreciate the enthusiasm of someone who thinks they’re knowledgeable by guessing the country I’m from, but they almost never get it correct. Their guesses are often countries that I felt like I had zero association with, especially countries like the Philippines and Indonesia. I had Filipino and Indonesian friends growing up, but I personally never thought they looked similar to me at all.

When asked about the pronunciation of my last name, I always begrudgingly respond back with the way I personally say it. With the exception of four people, nobody else in the world has my last name—which means I can make up any pronunciation I want, and it would be correct, since nobody can tell me how to pronounce my own name. However, even when I give my own pronunciation, some people will find their way to give me stupid nicknames such as “Ping Pong” or “Pingus,” and that’s even more annoying.

The rarity of my last name also functions as an easy method of identification, which can be a vulnerability at times. My fifth grade classmate Googled my name and found my mom’s name and my old home address, and I only figured out last year how to disable these search results from appearing online. A classmate who was in my Algebra II class Googled my name and found my older brother’s LinkedIn, claiming he found a “distant relative” of mine. Obviously, mentioning this is counterintuitive in trying to get people not to Google my name, but I can’t pretend like it hasn’t happened before when I know it’s going to happen again in the future. I already know that this article will show up near the top of the Google homepage when you search my name, but it’s just something I have to deal with. My last name allows people to know too many things about me, and, beyond culture, it represents my entire identity. I have no control over this, and I have to be more cautious about my digital footprint than other people, which is another reason why I sometimes wished I was just the short, simple, and humble Ray Lee.

However, beyond surface level questions and childish teasing, I hated one comment the absolute most. “You don’t really look Thai, though. You look like you could be Northern Chinese or Korean,” I recall my physics classmate saying. I wasn’t angry, but I was a little bit shocked since I’ve never been told before that I “don’t look Thai,” even though I know I don’t.

I hate being questioned about my background; it’s as if people see through the 14 character long disguise, the long pristine suit. I have to defend both my Thai-ness and my Chinese-ness in that case, both being cultures that I don’t have a deep connection with. Having to explain “Oh yeah, my grandfather on my mom’s side had to escape China after World War II because they were an ethnic minority, and my dad’s parents were just immigrants,” is an extra step that I don’t like taking because I’ll never truly be Chinese, just like how I’ll never truly be Thai. When I received comments about my Chinese blood and Thai identity as a kid, I often didn’t care. However, now, as a petty teenager who loves to fight back, I now only want to say “I’m Chinese, technically.” But I can’t get myself to do that when it only worsens the problem and creates confusion, for both myself and others. I remember one of my teachers this year asked me how to say “Good morning” in Thai, and I couldn’t respond because I didn’t know. Then, they joked “You’re a disappointment to your ancestors,” which was awkward since my ancestors didn’t even speak Thai, apart from my parents. That comment felt worse knowing that I knew how to say that phrase in Mandarin, but not Thai, for some reason. I’ve experimented with telling people I’m Chinese by blood, but I feel worse when I get asked “Oh, so are you mixed?” in response to my bluff. It makes me feel like I’m balancing two identities instead of just one, with my 14 character long disguise becoming an elongated and stretched, no-longer pristine suit. I’m only Chinese when it’s out of convenience, but that convenience has the consequences of further disorientation and confusion.

It’s just when people really question your identity beyond the simple “Where are you from?”, you feel attacked. I hate it when people comment on this insecurity, because it makes me feel called out for something too personal that only I thought I was aware about.

I once met someone who was half-Chinese, half-Thai, and I asked them which side they identify more with. Their response?

“Why does that even matter? I feel like whenever you talk to me, it’s always asking about identity.” And they were right.

My family history is very interesting and I’m proud of it for being so unique, but it’s not something that I can claim as part of my cultural identity. My mom has Chinese and Taiwanese friends and speaks fluent Mandarin, but that doesn’t automatically make her Chinese, let alone myself. I know a few Mandarin phrases from my Mom, but I will never have a native accent or the childhood memories of speaking Mandarin that actual Chinese Americans have. It’s difficult to explain to others that my parents were also immigrants as a kid and that I don’t consider myself Chinese, especially when so many people from this school are Chinese. But if I tell others I don’t identify as Chinese, it comes with the expectation that I identify mostly with Thai culture, which I don’t.

Although Lattapongpisut made it easier for my Dad to assimilate into Thai culture, it made it harder for myself to assimilate into American culture. When people asked me my ethnicity, it wasn’t simple to just answer “Thai,” because I never identified well with Thai culture. Just as my Dad wanted to assimilate into Thai culture, I wanted to assimilate into American culture. Just as my Dad barely knows any of the Teochew dialect or Mandarin, I barely know any Thai, because my parents chose not to enforce the language much at home. I was forced to try Thai food such as Pad See Ew or Moo tid mi kab khaw, but my American body rejected such spicy and gnarly colored things. My parents did not prioritize teaching me how to “be Thai,” because they didn’t know how to “be Chinese.” Teaching me how to “be Thai” didn’t matter if I was just going to grow up American.

Beyond not relating to Thai culture at home, I couldn’t relate to it outside of home. Being asked about my identity when I barely even knew it myself made me very insecure as a kid. Yes, I am Thai and have Thai citizenship, but that’s not who I choose to be. I was born in Flushing and grew up in Elmhurst. My hometown is Queens. I grew up listening to American bands such as Twenty One Pilots or K-Pop bands such as BLACKPINK. I couldn’t tell you what famous Thai celebrities or musicians there are, other than Lisa from BLACKPINK coincidentally. I’ve been to Thailand two times in my entire life, which is less than many non-Thai people in this school. I can’t even read a single character in Thai despite the language having an alphabet, but I can somehow read many Chinese and Korean words simply because I was a curious kid who had access to the internet and Duolingo. I could have also learned the Thai alphabet on the internet, but I simply had no interest in it. It didn’t help that I was pale, had squinty eyes, and was quiet and reserved, which were traits that fit in with much of the East Asian population I grew up around in Elmhurst and in Stuyvesant. No one questioned who I was until they saw my last name and swarmed me with a plethora of inquiries. If I was simply Ray Lee, then nobody would question me about who I am, and I could coexist peacefully with the hundreds of other quiet Chinese kids who already had a sense of belonging. I hated being so unique but ordinary at the same time. I remember telling my parents when I was about 12 years old that I wanted to change my last name as an adult. Their reaction? 

“Yeah, that’s fine.” That’s because they understood me and my struggle.

But I realize that other people don’t have that struggle and are comfortable in their identity. I know some people find it weird to care so much about cultural identity, especially if they only resonate with one. I know I care a lot about my cultural identity, but that’s because it’s who I am, to myself and to the world. Some people are comfortable identifying as just American, and I’ve always wanted to do that too. I don’t constantly think about my last name and my cultural identity, but when I do, I realize my last name has affected me in life more than I thought. It’s simply a testament to how much I want to find a community and people similar to me, beyond culture. It’s not just an issue of culture, but an issue of my entire identity. I care about first impressions and what people think of me when they first see me.

But I don’t know if I want to change my last name in the future anymore; changing my last name is just a poor coping method. It won’t change the fact that aspects of Thai culture influenced me growing up, even if I want to forget about it. It will never erase the past of me growing up with this name for my entire childhood and adolescence, just like how my Dad grew up with the last name Lee. Even if I change my last name, Ray Lattapongpisut will still be the name that everyone from my childhood and adolescence will remember me as. Will the people who I knew in my childhood and teenage years matter or even remember me in 20 years or so? Probably not. But some of these people will remember me in the future, some of them purely because of my long last name. And that uniqueness sets me apart from other people with common last names, and it sets me apart from everyone else who isn’t a Lattapongpisut—nearly the entire world.

So while I may not be Ray Ping Pong or Ray Lee, and while I may not be perfectly Chinese or Thai, I will always be American and named Ray. Although my parents could have given me a long Thai first name to accompany my already long Thai last name, they told me that they wanted to give me a short, American name so I wouldn’t get bullied as a kid. I appreciate this fact because I know they did not mean for me to have a difficult time when they immigrated here—they know how it feels to grow up in a place that they did not fully connect with. What the light green palm trees of Bangkok and the dark green elm trees of New York have in common are the people strolling by in the concrete jungle who just want to push on through in life. These are people who have places to go and who want to belong somewhere. Because beyond names and identity is the human, a social creature with history beyond their face.