Chinese Family Name Puns

Here are two of my dad's funniest (most memorable) moments while out to eat...

About five years ago, my ex-boyfriend and I went out for Valentine's Day with my parents. My mom and I were having a conversation about my brother's ex-fiancee when...

Ex: "Oh, so you guys don't like her?"

Dad: "No, but that's alright, we don't really like [K's] boyfriend all that much either."

Needless to say, it wasn't as funny at the time...

Then about a few months ago, with my current boyfriend, we went out to eat with some family friends. At the time, my boyfriend was employed at an A/C company doing Chinese drywall and was talking with two of the men employed in other construction trades.

Family Friend: "Don't get involved in concrete. Or Construction. Better yet, stay out of anything that begins with a C."

Dad (from the other side of the table): "You better stay out of anything that starts with a K, too."

It's even more ironic considering I happen to have one of those names that's commonly spelled with a C, but my parents decided to spell with a K. But as mortified as my boyfriend was, I have to give it to my dad, that one was pretty damn funny.

So in my calculus class last year in math, there were these two Chinese twins. Ving, and Ling. Ving was always super cool with me. In exchange for answers (he was super smart) I would hang out with him and be his friend and stuff. After I cheated off of him and studied with him though, I did get to be his friend and we got very close.

His sister, Ling, was always uptight about school and she made sure to study, she got stressed about a B, etc. One day I was hanging out with Ving, and we started talking about names. He went off on this huge rant about how he hated his, and how he wanted to change it to something more Asian-American, like Lee. I told him that the Courthouse downtown had a form that you could fill to legally change it. He told me: "I always give you answers. If you could just drive me down to the courthouse this one time, I will never forget you. I just hate this god-forsaken Chinese name and I want to get rid of it forever."

He seemed pretty adamant about it, so I decided the best decision would be to take him. We walked out to my car, and right as I put the keys in the ignition Ling came running and tapped on the car door like a madman. I rolled it down and she started freaking out about how Ving's name had been passed down through generations and generations, but Ving didn't care. He just wanted to go down to the Courthouse and get it over with.

Ling figured that coming with would be the best idea, so if anything else came up that she would be needed for, she would be there for Ving. Honestly, I felt stuck in the middle of a family feud, so I just took her along. When we got to the Courthouse, Ving confidently walked up to the front desk and asked the receptionist if he could change his name. She gave him a little packet of paper and told him to sit down. Ling and I waited patiently while Ving filled out his info. I was watching him fill it out and I noticed he really did want to change his name to Lee.

Before he finished, though, he started tearing up. He told me he couldn't change his name. He asked the lady at the front that he couldn't do it, and she told him he would need twenty dollars to cancel the request. Ling was so relieved and happy that he changed his mind, she dug through her purse, found the money, and started to hand it to the receptionist.

It was at this moment that the most stereotypical Asian man burst through the doors. He was wearing a Hawaiian shirt, a visor, American flag shorts, flip flops, everything. This