In 1980 I had a lot of oriental students in my grade. During gym when our classes went against each other we learned some of their names although I had trouble telling them apart so I renamed them all variations of Chingy. When time when I was randomly naming different classmates of mine to a friend not from our school and asking him which one he liked better (although he did not know any of them and would answer simply based on his knowledge of others with those names) I then switched to our rival class. I asked him if he liked Chingy better or Wingy and he replied Wingy. I then asked if he liked Wingy better or Chingy and he replied Chingy. I concluded that when he had no opinion about either name he would simply pick the second one.
"My parents, brother, and I left Iran in 1980, shortly after the revolution. After a brief stay in Italy, we packed all our belongings once again and headed west to the exotic and the unknown: Vancouver. We had recently been accepted as landed immigrants, meaning Canada graciously opened its doors and we gratefully accepted; we arrived at Vancouver International Airport on my 10th birthday, three suitcases and one sewing machine in tow. After respectful but intense questioning at immigration, we were dropped off at a hotel on Robson Street, which was then still a couple years shy of becoming the fashionable tourist hub it is today. We were jetlagged, culture shocked, and hungry, so that first night, my father and brother courageously ventured out into the wild in search of provisions. I fell asleep before they returned. The next morning, I woke up at 5 a.m. and ravenously feasted on a cold Quarter Pounder with cheese and limp French fries that had been left by my beds...

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