“My mother named me Violet after a tiny flower she loved as a girl growing up in San Francisco, a city I have seen only in postcards. I grew to hate my name. The courtesans pronounced it like the Shanghainese word vyau-la – what you said when you wanted to get rid of something. “Vyau-la! Vyau-la!” greeted me everywhere.”

“My mother named me Violet after a tiny flower she loved as a girl growing up in San Francisco, a city I have seen only in postcards. I grew to hate my name. The courtesans pronounced it like the Shanghainese word vyau-la – what you said when you wanted to get rid of something. “Vyau-la! Vyau-la!” greeted me everywhere.”

— Amy Tan