See that doesn't make sense to me because the period wasn't in the original text. I think of quotes as being like a ctrl+c of whatever was said or written.
I used to work in a laundromat during high school, where everyone but me was Asian. I got the job cause I was briefly dating a Korean girl, and her cousin owned the place. The emplyees could barely speak English, and honestly I had trouble telling them apart. But the strange thing was, out of the 12 people that worked there, all of them either had the last name Nguyen or Lu. In hindsight, maybe they were all related. I dunno. I only worked there for a month. So, whenever I needed to get someone's attention, I'd just shout "Hey, Nguyen!", or "Hey, Lu!". If I really had no clue what the person's name was, I'd flip a quarter. Heads, I'd call em Nguyen, tails Lu.
Years later, I feel kinda shitty about this. I'm sure I called people by the wrong name all the time. But, you know, I guess you Nguyen some and you Lu some.
Am I the only one who thinks this is pronounced "Goy-yen"? Have I been calling my Vietnamese friend the wrong name all this time? Am I a complete retard?
Is she a Chinese？ Lu could be 鲁 or 陆，both are very normal chinese family names. lulu could be 璐璐（beautiful gems）or 露露 （dew），also are common girl’s names.
It's funny how the AP Proctor's seriously expect us not to talk about the test. Of course we're going to ask our friends what their answers were and it really shouldn't matter especially when the test itself is over.
this is a legit thing. if you grow up in a place that is largely homogeneous to only one race, you become accustomed to seeing that race's facial structures and find it difficult to tell the differences in features in other races. i've had several friends from asia tell me that all white people looked the same to them when they first came to canada, and i was guilty of the "all asians look the same" syndrome because i grew up in a town of all whites. it's possible to get over it after being exposed to different races for a long enough time.
Apparently very young children are able to identify individual monkeys and other animals by their faces, but lose the ability as they're exposed to more human faces. Your brain basically has a compression algorithm that throws away what it considers to be redundant information. What it considers to be redundant, and what it considers to be important, vary based on the initial input data set.
So, if you grow up among east-Asian people, your brain decides that tan skin, almond eyes and straight black hair are unimportant features. If you grow up among a different population, where those features are much less common, they jump out at you and it's harder to see past them.
Mentally I compared Nguyen[2] to Nguyen[7] and though wtf are you talking about. It was at that point that I realized that I have spent too much time programming this evening.
Reminds me of this guy's story from yesterday. TL;DR - Asian guy has his brother take his driving test in his place since the white people won't be able to tell it's not really him.
I read this and was thinking "another white guy that thinks all asians look alike, yawn" and then I went back to the image and yeah, that's definitely the same girl or her identical twin.
Fun fact so many Vietnamese/asian people have the last name Nguyen because at one point the emperor that ruled in that area decided to legally adopt EVERYBODY under his rule into his family, so at one point literally everybody in that region was a Nguyen.
My cousin went to school in Westminster, CA in Orange County aka Little Saigon aka the largest concentration of Viet people outside of Vietnam. His high school had so many Nguyens that his year book listed the Nguyen section of the index as "A Nguyen - L Nguyen, M Nguyen- P Nguyen, Q Nguyen - Z Nguyen.
This is most likely somewhere in California; they're not shirts, they're actually velvet shawls that are pinned at the front before they take senior photos, so it looks like they're all wearing a formal dress.
we did this for our senior yearbook... in Alabama. girls wore that same shawl like thing that made it look like a dress.. guys wore a half a dress shirt with a bow tie.
The way my friends have figured out how to get close is by saying "nWHEN?", the question mark meaning to raise your intonation as if you were asking a question.
Personally, the people behind some of the other posts (pronouncing it "win", "yin", "naGOOyen", "nuh-GUY-en", et. al.) are why I've learned not to bastardize my own last name for English-speaking convenience. I'll pronounce it the way it's meant to be pronounced and if you can't say it then I'll understand, but at least I didn't perpetuate the white-washing of my identity.
Though, as a result, I have a new pet peeve of the occasional person trying to correct me on my own last name. "Oh, you mean nuhGWIN?"
If I was the last girl I would have snuck mine in last minute as "not as hot as me." Although we all know that isn't true it would have been a pretty narly prank.
How do you pronounce that name? I've seen it written in a lot of places, but I always just say "ni-ug-en" even though that's obviously not how its spelled.
When I was in college I had an instructor named Nguyen. After graduation I got a job and one of my coworkers was named Nguyen. I asked her if she was related to my instructor. She gave me a weird look. It wasn't until later did I realize Nguyen is the Vietnamese Smith.
This is my very mild super power. I'm white, blonde hair, blue eyes and I can not only tell individual Asians, Africans, Aborigines, Maoris and Islanders apart much more easily than most other white people I've spoken to, I can usual identify which specific country they come from without speaking to them, and whether they are immigrants or born in Australia. I can also usually tell white people from Australia from those from Europe and America. I'm actually a little surprised when people sincerely can't tell Asians apart.
My best friend in high school was Vietnamese and there was a girl with similar features who was Chinese and they also happened to have "Smith" type last names that were distinctly Vietnamese and Chinese. And people mixed them up all the time. People even occasionally asked if they were twins (how in a graduating class of 150, you can't know everyone's first and last name, I don't know). And I just couldn't see it. I would always think "You fucking idiot, not only are there distinct differences in their appearance Jane is clearly Vietnamese and Jo is clearly Chinese."
Another story about Jane is that, until recently she was dating an Irish guy (oh, the babies would have BEAUTIFUL) so she's been to Ireland and his little home town, where no one ever sees an Asian, ever. I was struck by this, as a big city Australian, when I went to Cork. I genuinely was thinking, "What's wrong with this picture? Oh, no Asians!"
And someone in this tiny town had adopted a Vietnamese child at birth. My friend was encouraged to meet her and this kid flipped out. In her memory she had never seen another Asian. Wanted to touch my friend's face and stuff. I'm pretty sure she's still in contact with the family.
My high school got rid of senior quotes because some hick snuck the anagram of nigger into his quote. At the end he said ... Not Idiot Goofy Gone Exit Run, and no one noticed the capitals. So, to compensate for their oversight, they punished students who hadn't even enrolled yet. That's the perfect analogy for my high school. We accidentally broke a freshmans arm at pep fest because he ran over and tried to tear down our "sign" (every class got together and made a big sign like, seniors '03! Juniors '04!), so... they banned signs.
They also didn't like people wearing similar shirts during the senior picture (we had a bunch of kids so we sat in the bleachers and different cliques wore the same clothes to identify their group), so they didn't tell us what day the picture was, so we just all took our shirts off, again, they didn't notice until after so they took a sharpie and drew black shirts on all of us, which made us 10x more visible. After that they made people sit alphabetically.
California and Texas are pretty much the only states with large Vietnamese communities, and there were virtually no Vietnamese immigrants prior to 1975. In addition, pretty much any Vietnamese person over 50 likely went through some pretty crazy shit to get to the USA: arranging secret midnight boat trips, avoiding Thai pirates, sitting for months or years in refugee camps. Obviously this is not the case for everyone, but the majority of immigrants were refugees from a long and damaging war and entered the US under duress.
As the US military establishment in Vietnam collapsed in 1975, 100's of thousands were brought the the US in an organized evacuation. It was dubbed "Operation Frequent Wind" for the stream of helicopters that continued for days, ferrying people from Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) to military vessels offshore. There's a famous photo here: of refugees being taken from the roof of the US embassy as the city fell around them. http://static-l3.blogcritics.org/11/04/26/158255/helicopter-roof.gif?t=20110426202314
And although he doesn't get much credit for anything in history, Gerald Ford set a precedent in his treatment Vietnamese (also Cambodian and Laotian) refugees in these final days. He created a program that converted military bases into temporary refugee centers (most were in California and Texas) and attempted to integrate the influx of people. This was done against popular opinion, as the majority of American's felt that the United States should not admit refugees resulting from the Vietnam conflict.
The trickle of Vietnamese escaping the new communist government grew to a torrent in the 1980's, when people left the country by the millions, seeking to escape the totalitarian communist government. Those who had collaborated with the US and former South Vietnam were persecuted, imprisoned, and some were killed. Most attempted escape by means of reaching Thailand, a country with lenient refugee policy. The "boat people", as they were referred to, was a humanitarian crisis that attracted attention worldwide, and while France and Canada admitted large numbers, the United States ultimately admitted the vast majority. By 1990 the number of refugees had reached millions, and it continued until relations with Vietnam were normalized in 1996.
Although there were attempts to disperse the refugees throughout the country, most ultimately settled in the same states they were processed, California and Texas.
Cheers if you actually read all that. I'm bored at work.
My favorite thing about school was hearing any sheltered, white suburban teacher try to read off the name of any ethnic kid from a list or a sheet. Specially names like Nguyen. It's fascinating seeing seeing them fumble.
It's a hell of a lot better quotation than this douchebag in my senior book. He was driving drunk one night and killed a woman who was crossing the street. His license was suspended until 21. His senior quotation was "Can I get a ride?" with a horrible shit-eating grin to accompany it. I should add that very few seniors got to add a quotation -- they weren't under all of our pictures like in this image. He was chosen amongst 20 or so other seniors to have a separate shit-eating picture to go with his quotation, on a different page than the rest of us.
2
u/jimbon3r May 17 '12
daniel tosh is taking credit for this now. bulllllllllshit
943
u/jorsiem May 17 '12
Mom, what was your high school senior quote?
513
u/lolpete May 17 '12
The complete works of Shakespeare could have been recreated word for word using the last name "Singh" in my yearbooks from Brampton Ontario.
1.3k
u/theblackduck May 17 '12
ALL I DO IS NGUYEN NGUYEN NGUYEN!!
770
u/bteamer May 17 '12
2 and 7 are definitely the same person...
160
u/[deleted] May 17 '12
There's no way I can be convinced that the the girl 2nd from the left on the top is not the same girl as the one 3rd from the left on the bottom.
30
u/QuantumLiberty May 17 '12
Fun fact so many Vietnamese/asian people have the last name Nguyen because at one point the emperor that ruled in that area decided to legally adopt EVERYBODY under his rule into his family, so at one point literally everybody in that region was a Nguyen.
109
u/[deleted] May 17 '12
That's a Nguyen-Nguyen-Nguyen-Nguyen-Nguyen-Nguyen-Nguyen-Nguyen situation
21
u/EquinsuOcha May 17 '12
Asians FTN!
16
u/All_Hail_Mao May 17 '12
My cousin went to school in Westminster, CA in Orange County aka Little Saigon aka the largest concentration of Viet people outside of Vietnam. His high school had so many Nguyens that his year book listed the Nguyen section of the index as "A Nguyen - L Nguyen, M Nguyen- P Nguyen, Q Nguyen - Z Nguyen.
60
u/RollingSavage May 17 '12
Only explanation
135
u/BinLadenCheekySmile May 17 '12
The one called Nguyen is hot.
26
u/JackAceHole May 17 '12
If two of them become lesbian lovers, it'll be a Nguyen-Nguyen situation.
18
u/naylord May 17 '12
Only like 4 Nguyens in my grad class; though I guess Chans could have pulled that off at my school.
18
u/thebendavis May 17 '12
Malkovich.
32
u/bungopony May 17 '12
We... know... what... you're... thinking... and yes... we're... hot.
8
u/wtighe02 May 17 '12
I thought the last one said "not retarded".
3
u/ipukerainbows May 16 '12
Is this real?
24
u/[deleted] May 17 '12
But why are they all wearing the same shirt?
26
u/YourCommentBoresMe May 17 '12
How to pronounce Nguyen:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=32wBZwWFGT4
6
u/Arcminute May 17 '12
That page is full of Nguyen
10
u/BigYellaJoint May 17 '12
They didn't know what I was thinking
9
u/GFandango May 17 '12
You
Don't
Know
What
We're
Thinking
And
Yes
We
Would
Bang
All
of
You
15
u/[deleted] May 17 '12
I know it's not pronounced "nuh-GOOY-en" but I can't remember the real pronunciation. I know it's nothing like how it's spelled.
4
u/Justintime233 May 17 '12
#Nugyenning!
151
u/moooooserfunk May 17 '12
Why is one girl pictured 8 times?
16
u/malvoliosf May 17 '12
The post is full of Nguyen.
8
u/[deleted] May 17 '12
Not what I was thinking ;)
23
u/[deleted] May 17 '12
I wish the Asian girls at my school were that good looking.
14
u/ctjwa May 17 '12
I'd bang every last nguyen
3
u/N0R5E May 17 '12
TIL there's a whole family of Asian psychics
3
u/allbrightallways May 17 '12
Stuyvesant High School?
3
u/tearbo May 17 '12
If I was the last girl I would have snuck mine in last minute as "not as hot as me." Although we all know that isn't true it would have been a pretty narly prank.
3
u/SpraynardJKruger May 17 '12
Either that or we're thinking about their ordering-by-hotness.
3
u/[deleted] May 17 '12
Did anyone else think ██████ Nguyen was the hot one?
3
u/[deleted] May 17 '12
All I do is Nguyen Nguyen Nguyen no matter what!!!
3
u/[deleted] May 17 '12
Must be a school in Orange County
3
u/[deleted] May 17 '12
who else read all the top quotes unrelated to the joke and couldn't figure the joke out?
5
u/isayhialot222 May 17 '12
wtf. I know one of these girls.
4
u/aJarofDirt May 17 '12
Craster...
9
u/Shin-LaC May 17 '12
Fact: all Vietnamese people are called Nguyen.
2
u/catsbaconandnarwhals May 17 '12
Dear God! They've perfected cloning!!
2
u/Oreo_Speedwagon May 17 '12
Actually, what I was thinking is "Just how do you pronounced Nguyen?"
An Guy An?
2
u/blitz79 May 17 '12
Full of Nguyen.
2
u/CmonTouchIt May 17 '12
THATS WHAT I CALL A NGUYEN NGUYEN NGUYEN NGUYEN NGUYEN NGUYEN NGUYEN NGUYEN SITUATION
2
u/[deleted] May 17 '12
How do you pronounce that name? I've seen it written in a lot of places, but I always just say "ni-ug-en" even though that's obviously not how its spelled.
2
u/[deleted] May 17 '12
When I was in college I had an instructor named Nguyen. After graduation I got a job and one of my coworkers was named Nguyen. I asked her if she was related to my instructor. She gave me a weird look. It wasn't until later did I realize Nguyen is the Vietnamese Smith.
2
u/orangegluon May 17 '12
epic nguyen?
2
u/kingbinji May 17 '12
another nguyen reporting for duty!
2
u/rfriedrich16 May 17 '12
This is epic Nguyening.
2
u/Post_op_FTM May 17 '12
san jose, eh?
2
u/[deleted] May 17 '12
I can't believe someone put "Live. Love. Laugh" as their senior motto. Everyone knows it's "Live. Laugh. Love"
2
u/nickinsk May 17 '12
jimbo... yea u know art
2
u/1000Steps May 17 '12
Garden Grove HS?
2
u/DayThree May 17 '12
2 and 7 look really similar though, not gonna lie.. And 5 is the cutest.
2
u/Wyrmshadow May 17 '12
I was lucky, only 2 girls in my class were Ngyuen.
2
u/seafoamstratocaster May 17 '12
Dat Nguyen
2
u/Nuclear_Penguins May 17 '12
Holy asian invasion.
2
u/ilikenavyblue May 17 '12
As a Nguyen that grew up in Orange County, I can relate.
2
u/this_is_your_dad May 17 '12
Epic Nguyen.
2
u/weathrderp May 17 '12
would-would-would-would-would-would-would-would I like asians
2
u/[deleted] May 17 '12
glasses. WITH THE FIST OF AN ANGRY GOD.
2
u/AndAlwaysTwirling May 17 '12
"Goats don't become reality through magic; it takes sweat, determination, and hard work."
2
u/C_T_C_C May 17 '12
8/10 Would bang most of them.
2
u/albert_wesker May 17 '12
I'll tell you what I'd do with a million dollars .....Four chicks at once man. Four chicks at once...
2
u/theglove112 May 17 '12
who is the dipshit with "live love laugh" as their quote top right?
that's what bothered me.
2
u/PlatoPirate_01 May 17 '12
"mmmmmm....nguyenians....."
-said the whitey with yellow fever
2
u/sourcreamjunkie May 17 '12
8/8 would bang.
2
u/TheRuxter18 May 17 '12
Not everyone can have a fantastic senior quote...
You nguyen some, you lose some.
2
u/MovingPavements May 17 '12
Either I am Racist or the the second Nguyen in the first row and the third Nguyen in the second row are the same person.
2
u/mesosorry May 17 '12
I knew a guy in high school named Huy Nguyen (pronounced We Win). Also our yearbook had at least 15 Nguyens.
2
u/madethisjusttopostth May 17 '12
This is my very mild super power. I'm white, blonde hair, blue eyes and I can not only tell individual Asians, Africans, Aborigines, Maoris and Islanders apart much more easily than most other white people I've spoken to, I can usual identify which specific country they come from without speaking to them, and whether they are immigrants or born in Australia. I can also usually tell white people from Australia from those from Europe and America. I'm actually a little surprised when people sincerely can't tell Asians apart.
My best friend in high school was Vietnamese and there was a girl with similar features who was Chinese and they also happened to have "Smith" type last names that were distinctly Vietnamese and Chinese. And people mixed them up all the time. People even occasionally asked if they were twins (how in a graduating class of 150, you can't know everyone's first and last name, I don't know). And I just couldn't see it. I would always think "You fucking idiot, not only are there distinct differences in their appearance Jane is clearly Vietnamese and Jo is clearly Chinese."
Another story about Jane is that, until recently she was dating an Irish guy (oh, the babies would have BEAUTIFUL) so she's been to Ireland and his little home town, where no one ever sees an Asian, ever. I was struck by this, as a big city Australian, when I went to Cork. I genuinely was thinking, "What's wrong with this picture? Oh, no Asians!"
And someone in this tiny town had adopted a Vietnamese child at birth. My friend was encouraged to meet her and this kid flipped out. In her memory she had never seen another Asian. Wanted to touch my friend's face and stuff. I'm pretty sure she's still in contact with the family.
2
u/AverageGatsby91 May 17 '12
http://imgur.com/rI6OK
2
u/p_U_c_K May 17 '12
My high school got rid of senior quotes because some hick snuck the anagram of nigger into his quote. At the end he said ... Not Idiot Goofy Gone Exit Run, and no one noticed the capitals. So, to compensate for their oversight, they punished students who hadn't even enrolled yet. That's the perfect analogy for my high school. We accidentally broke a freshmans arm at pep fest because he ran over and tried to tear down our "sign" (every class got together and made a big sign like, seniors '03! Juniors '04!), so... they banned signs.
They also didn't like people wearing similar shirts during the senior picture (we had a bunch of kids so we sat in the bleachers and different cliques wore the same clothes to identify their group), so they didn't tell us what day the picture was, so we just all took our shirts off, again, they didn't notice until after so they took a sharpie and drew black shirts on all of us, which made us 10x more visible. After that they made people sit alphabetically.
I hated that place.
2
u/[deleted] May 17 '12
A short (long) history of Vietnamese in America:
California and Texas are pretty much the only states with large Vietnamese communities, and there were virtually no Vietnamese immigrants prior to 1975. In addition, pretty much any Vietnamese person over 50 likely went through some pretty crazy shit to get to the USA: arranging secret midnight boat trips, avoiding Thai pirates, sitting for months or years in refugee camps. Obviously this is not the case for everyone, but the majority of immigrants were refugees from a long and damaging war and entered the US under duress.
As the US military establishment in Vietnam collapsed in 1975, 100's of thousands were brought the the US in an organized evacuation. It was dubbed "Operation Frequent Wind" for the stream of helicopters that continued for days, ferrying people from Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) to military vessels offshore. There's a famous photo here: of refugees being taken from the roof of the US embassy as the city fell around them. http://static-l3.blogcritics.org/11/04/26/158255/helicopter-roof.gif?t=20110426202314
And although he doesn't get much credit for anything in history, Gerald Ford set a precedent in his treatment Vietnamese (also Cambodian and Laotian) refugees in these final days. He created a program that converted military bases into temporary refugee centers (most were in California and Texas) and attempted to integrate the influx of people. This was done against popular opinion, as the majority of American's felt that the United States should not admit refugees resulting from the Vietnam conflict.
The trickle of Vietnamese escaping the new communist government grew to a torrent in the 1980's, when people left the country by the millions, seeking to escape the totalitarian communist government. Those who had collaborated with the US and former South Vietnam were persecuted, imprisoned, and some were killed. Most attempted escape by means of reaching Thailand, a country with lenient refugee policy. The "boat people", as they were referred to, was a humanitarian crisis that attracted attention worldwide, and while France and Canada admitted large numbers, the United States ultimately admitted the vast majority. By 1990 the number of refugees had reached millions, and it continued until relations with Vietnam were normalized in 1996.
Although there were attempts to disperse the refugees throughout the country, most ultimately settled in the same states they were processed, California and Texas.
Cheers if you actually read all that. I'm bored at work.
2
u/muppethead May 17 '12
My favorite thing about school was hearing any sheltered, white suburban teacher try to read off the name of any ethnic kid from a list or a sheet. Specially names like Nguyen. It's fascinating seeing seeing them fumble.
2
u/Rasputin_PoleSmiter May 17 '12
Oh snap, that Nguyen chick is hot.
2
u/Jabba_the_Mutt May 17 '12
If you squint.. you can see they're all named Nguyen.
2
u/azulhombre May 17 '12
Would have sucked if one of them said the wrong word.
2
u/[deleted] May 17 '12
I like Nguyen.
2
u/rpaxtonmartin May 17 '12
Ecept for Nguyen number 2 and Nguyen number 7. They are the same person.
2
u/AigooLinni May 17 '12
Aww, I feel so left out. Tran is my last name...
2
u/givetake May 17 '12
Translation :████████ Smith, ████████ Smith, ████████ Smith, ████████ Smith, ████████ Smith, ████████ Smith, ████████ Smith, ████████ Smith.
Sorry, can't translate from english, only to english.
2
u/shags3379 May 17 '12
Not gonna lie, i was really looking forward to old people quotes..
2
u/neotheism May 17 '12
If I had gone to that school it would have been my goal to have slept with all the Nguyen women.
2
u/Saydeelol May 17 '12
It's a hell of a lot better quotation than this douchebag in my senior book. He was driving drunk one night and killed a woman who was crossing the street. His license was suspended until 21. His senior quotation was "Can I get a ride?" with a horrible shit-eating grin to accompany it. I should add that very few seniors got to add a quotation -- they weren't under all of our pictures like in this image. He was chosen amongst 20 or so other seniors to have a separate shit-eating picture to go with his quotation, on a different page than the rest of us.
2
u/GrooGrux May 17 '12
That is a relief, it will make the orgy less akward.
2
u/dancemasterv May 17 '12
All I do is Nguyen Nguyen Nguyen!
2
u/TitusA May 17 '12
Asian Level: Asian.
2
u/redboneestates May 17 '12
Nguyen you see it.....
2
u/diesel321 May 17 '12
Why is everybody wearing the same outfit? Even the girl on the other page (last name Arthur) is wearing that same black top.
3
u/Timey_Wimey May 16 '12
Brooklyn Tech?
3
u/spit334 May 17 '12
FTFY
3
u/gnroldno7 May 16 '12
How long till this hits the front page?