Musings: Identity Crisis on Paper

Some of you might know that I went through an identity crisis on paper where from months of not even getting an interview for jobs I thought it could be my name that was preventing me from moving to the next stage of the job application process. After Campbell Live's segment titled "Migrant changes name to get job" at where Rushabh Nayak had no luck getting a job until he shorten his name to Rush on his applications after which he received interviews to jobs that would otherwise just ignore him.

This isn't the first time through something like this. Back in my early years of being in New Zealand people have told me to adopt an english name to make me easier to identify. Even Dad told me to introduce myself as J.Y to make it easier for people to pronounce my name. A series of names was picked but I never liked any of them. I couldn't see myself as a Joey or a John or a Charles. At school and various other places when people would pronounce my name wrong either unintentionally or intentionally. I have always defended that my name was Jawyei. I never liked J.Y as it sounds like a dumbing down of my name to satisfy the masses. Like butter chicken to curries.

One time I did try to introduce myself as Jay. This was at the Sword and Shields society at Whangarei in 1999. It never felt right to me when its member would call me Jay. I would think to myself no, my name's Jawyei. That felt strange because I can't even give myself another name without myself defending against me.

It was only when I came around to Identity Crisis 2 did I come to realise why I like my name. My name was mis-pin-yin'ed as I don't think Dad knew Pinyin nor English at the time of my birth. The correct Pinyin of my chinese characters should be Shào Wei. On my birth certificate it's Jaw Yei (It's Jawyei because I joined the two words together as I thought it looked better) and due to a clumsy Y it looks like a V so on my passport, it's Jaw Vei. Before we came to New Zealand Dad said my name was Jawyei and since we came to New Zealand, my formal chinese name was never used. My sense of identity to the rest of the world was Jawyei. Hi I'm Jawyei. No, my name is Jawyei. When you have created a sense of identity for yourself and have defended it through the years you tend to get a little stubborn.

That stubbornness prevented me from changing my name, even on paper. The best I got was J Wong with the intention of correcting it back to Jawyei when said out loud. It was my friends who said I shouldn't need to change my name for a job. That Jawyei was the best name for me. That affirmation made me comfortable with my name on paper and hopefully it won't impact on job prospects that initially started this ordeal.

My thanks to my friends.