The word bich means a kind of jade. Growing up, I knew that Vietnamese girls were supposed to wear jade bracelets and grow into them so that one day the bracelets would be permanent. The stone is meant to protect, to heal—and the greener the jade, the better. In a different country, in a different life, my given name would be just as beautiful. In truth, I could never wear a bracelet very long. In truth, most of the people who have claimed to like the name Bich, or who have been outraged and horrified at the idea of changing it, have been white women. They are the ones who told me the name was cool, was interesting, was unique, was being true to myself, was an important part of my heritage and cultural identity. They said that they liked the name, that it would break their hearts if I changed it. They did not say that they wished to have the name themselves. I wanted to believe them; for a long time, I made a choice to believe them. But I knew, too, that they liked the exotic so long as they didn’t have to deal with its complications. They liked the idea of the exotic, not thinking about how exotic might benefit the person deciding what exotic is. Sometimes I wondered whether they also liked feeling bad for me.
(via dollsahoy)
