Let me fill you in on a little personal insider shared between me and most of the people who know me in real life. I won't even play it off and pretend like it wasn’t embarrassing - but there was a time when my Facebook’s last name was ‘Vroomvroom’.
While Vân (pronounced like fun but with a v - vuhn) is a pretty common Vietnamese name, it’s a word that’s way too common for those who speaks English. I’ve always considered myself to be quite proud of my heritage and culture - so I never felt like there was anything wrong with my name, to say the least. Although it’s pretty annoying and frustrating when you’re introducing yourself and it seems like someone’s correcting you about your own name - like “Dan?” “Ban?”.
When most people my age rebelled in high school by dying their hair green and sneaking out to party, I no longer felt the need to spell out my name for others anymore and kinda followed up their initial confusion with “yes, like the four wheel vehicle.” So half jokingly, half not I remembered changing my last name to ‘Vroomvroom’ on Facebook during my senior year in high school, also with a purpose to hide my profile from colleges stalking me (oh the tech advancements).
Some of my friends still joke about ‘Van Vroomvroom’ to this day, and I guess, it was kind of something that stuck with me. It’s a cheesy play on words, but ‘Vroom’ was a phrase that kinda kept me moving through a period of time when most of the people around me were trying to figure out what they wanted to be, where they wanted to go to school, and what careers they wanted to pursue. So many huge life decisions were all in front of me, and yet I knew that as long as I can confidently carry my name and live up to it - that everything was all just going to continue moving forward.
I actually got my jacket embroidered a while back in December thanks to some homies at Opening Ceremony but never really got the time to shoot a proper outfit with it. Earlier this year, when I was in Tokyo for a couple weeks, I took up self-portraiting again and ironically parked myself in this small outdoor garage to document this jacket on the blog. So yeah, my personal style couldn't possibly be anymore personal than this. Cheers!
While Vân (pronounced like fun but with a v - vuhn) is a pretty common Vietnamese name, it’s a word that’s way too common for those who speaks English. I’ve always considered myself to be quite proud of my heritage and culture - so I never felt like there was anything wrong with my name, to say the least. Although it’s pretty annoying and frustrating when you’re introducing yourself and it seems like someone’s correcting you about your own name - like “Dan?” “Ban?”.
When most people my age rebelled in high school by dying their hair green and sneaking out to party, I no longer felt the need to spell out my name for others anymore and kinda followed up their initial confusion with “yes, like the four wheel vehicle.” So half jokingly, half not I remembered changing my last name to ‘Vroomvroom’ on Facebook during my senior year in high school, also with a purpose to hide my profile from colleges stalking me (oh the tech advancements).
Some of my friends still joke about ‘Van Vroomvroom’ to this day, and I guess, it was kind of something that stuck with me. It’s a cheesy play on words, but ‘Vroom’ was a phrase that kinda kept me moving through a period of time when most of the people around me were trying to figure out what they wanted to be, where they wanted to go to school, and what careers they wanted to pursue. So many huge life decisions were all in front of me, and yet I knew that as long as I can confidently carry my name and live up to it - that everything was all just going to continue moving forward.
I actually got my jacket embroidered a while back in December thanks to some homies at Opening Ceremony but never really got the time to shoot a proper outfit with it. Earlier this year, when I was in Tokyo for a couple weeks, I took up self-portraiting again and ironically parked myself in this small outdoor garage to document this jacket on the blog. So yeah, my personal style couldn't possibly be anymore personal than this. Cheers!
