Passing the Torch

Hello Bloggers. I am the Dollah aka Bill (story to follow). I will be assuming the task of updating this blog of our experiences and travels in Asia. Don’t worry… you will still get to enjoy the entertaining excerpts Annie so enjoys creating but you will have to suffer through more of my additions to find them. So you have my apologies up front.

For those of you who are not familiar with the name Dollah sit back and enjoy the story and for those of you who are, well… enjoy a trip down memory lane. As some of you may know Anne’s parents are Chinese and were born in China. They came to America more or less around the time Anne was born. As a result from time to time there are a few difficulties with communication. In this instance it was my name. When Anne first introduced me to her mother she said my name was Bill. Well needless to say there is not a Chinese version of the name Bill so Anne proceeded to try to explain. She tried the example of Bill Clinton and then continued on with every famous Bill she could think of to no avail. Then she had the brilliant idea of using the example of one of life’s most often referenced items. Money. She said, “His name is Bill, you know Bill like dollar bill.” Her mother’s response… “Oh, Dollah Bill!” This has now become the standard of how my name is explained to relatives whose English is a second language.

Anne thought this story was quite amusing and shared it with a couple friends and co-workers. This quickly ballooned and now most of Anne’s friends and co-workers know me as Dollah. Believe me, this is quite amusing when I meet someone for the first time and they say “so this is the Dollah” or “Hi Dollah” or “Nice to finally meet you Dollah”. Keeping in mind that most of the time that this occurs is at a work function or at a fancy work dinner. So just in case any of you are thinking of having a child and want a name that will be globally universal… try to remember Dollah Bill.