Paradox Blog

The phone rang. On the other side of the receiver, a tongue-twisted stranger struggles to pronounce Jwonan or Yushan, my husband's and my names. Another telemarketer. He has no chance at all in selling me anything, not if he cannot even pronounce our names properly. I find it amusing the poor marketer's plight with foreign sounding names and wonder what is his success rate in going about this annoying business. They gave themselves away long before they had the chance to state their business. I am more than ready to hang up on him for they have not only invaded my privacy but mangled our names and deserve the brush-off. Once in a while, a slick one knows better to use the more common America names we adopted and gets just a little further. More and more, some insurance agents, long distance phone representatives and stock brokers would resort to our mother tongue and try to establish common grounds with us. In English or in Chinese, phone solicitation is the same annoying nuisance without which life can be better.