I’ll change my name to VAN
Over the last weeks I got several calls from so called Western managed and quality services like my hospital and my dentist. The conversation invariably started with, “Am I speaking to mister “Van”. (Mister “From”, a common part of a Dutch surname)
Before the The Dell china customer rep was convinced I was called mr. Van as well.
As apparently these Western managed and mostly overpriced services don’t bother to train their staff how foreign names work, I have decided I’ll change my name to mister Van.
Let’s see how that works out in their administration.
Posted
Wednesday, July 4th, 2007 at 7:22 am,
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July 4th, 2007 13:00
I hear you - I get that all the time in Taiwan, too (my surname is van Dyck)
August 22nd, 2007 10:24
Heh, you get that a lot in the Netherlands with all the foreigners trying to pronounce the typical Dutch names, like Van Buuren and whatever.
It’ll be fun watching the Chinese trying to pronounce Mulchrone, or Finbar for that matter, as they’ve got a hard enough time pronouncing it in the Netherlands.
I guess it’ll turn annoying eventually, though, but I’ll enjoy it while it lasts. I’m off to Shanghai in two weeks, and looking forward to it \o/
August 27th, 2007 08:20
BECAUSE I WANT TO TELL EVERONE HOW GOOD IT WAS HERE
August 27th, 2007 08:21
I LUV THIS WEBSITE
May 18th, 2011 08:51
a friend of mine, he’s family name is lv (in chinese).. he went to france one summer and the custom staff asked him:”Sir, but is your family name really LV?” haha