Two Years of Laughing Along While a Friend Imitated My Accent

"One iced tea, please, mo te rang rua chi rua."

The whole table bursts out laughing. Thục has just copied the way people speak where I come from, to order from the waitress, spoon still in hand, face lit up like she has pulled off a joke. I laugh too. Laughing along, like every other day: mouth pulled up in the right place, eyes on the plate of cucumber.

Quarter to twelve, the rice eatery at the head of the alley, a ceiling fan turning slowly, the smell of garlic and chilli fish sauce rising from a chipped bowl. Two years I have sat at this table, and two years I have laughed along like this.

I know Thục means no harm. I also know it is a small thing, so small that saying it aloud would make me sound like someone who holds grudges. Because it was small I never said it, and because I never said it, it kept sitting there, one more helping every lunchtime.

This is about the lunch when I stopped laughing along, and about one short sentence I said to Thục, just enough that the table did not break.

This is not saying that joking about regional accents is wrong, or that anyone who has done it is a bad person. Most people who joke do not realise the listener's laugh is not the same as their own. Nor is it about being too sensitive and needing to be "fixed", or about having to become difficult before anyone respects you. It is something smaller: telling a friend, in one sentence, that there is something you do not find funny, and then staying to finish lunch.

The lunch I did not laugh

Thursday. Vy had been at the company for three days and was sitting at the head of the table. Thục did the voice again, this time for Vy. Vy laughed, then glanced over at me, and her laugh stalled halfway, because I was chewing my rice and not laughing.

One second, no more. And I remembered it all evening.

Nine at night, my rented room, the desk lamp yellow, I phoned home to Ma. She listened to me talk about the office for a while and then said, "You sound strange lately, what's happened, child?" I said, "I'm the same as ever, Ma." But I knew she had heard it right. For two years at work I had learned to shave down the words "rang" and "rua", to slow my speech so nobody had to ask me to repeat myself. Over the phone my old voice came out on its own, the way water runs down to the low ground.

Laughter as a fee

The easy explanation is the one I used to give myself: easygoing, not petty. There is some truth in that. But if I were only easygoing, I would not have remembered Vy's glance that long.

Underneath was something else. Every time I laughed along, I paid a small fee to keep my seat at that table, like a newcomer paying dues to a group. I paid it steadily for two years and Thục never knew, because to her my laugh was permission. She was not wrong to think so: I had given permission, every day. What weighed on me was not exactly the joke. It was that at that table only the version of me who laughed was allowed to sit, while the person who said "mo te rang rua" in her own voice could only turn up over the phone, at nine at night.

Where I nearly spoiled it from the start was the padding laugh. I had my sentence ready and planned to tuck onto the end of it: "ha ha, I'm serious though." It is tempting because it makes the sentence safe: if Thục takes offence, I still have a way back, I can say it was a joke. But a sentence with a laugh on the end gets filed by the listener alongside all the other jokes, and the two of you go on eating as if nothing was said. Instead: ordinary voice, ordinary face, short, then stop.

One gentle sentence, once

The next afternoon, quarter past two, Thục and I went down to get iced milk coffee at the shop across from the office. The glass was sweating, my hands were cold, and my voice sounded thinner than usual.

"Thục, can I say one small thing?"

"Sure, what is it?"

"About copying my accent. I've laughed along for two years, but honestly I don't enjoy it much. Could you go easy on that for me?"

"Huh... I didn't mean anything by it."

"I know you didn't. I'm only saying I don't enjoy it."

There was nothing pleasant about this. I want to say so honestly: many people report feeling lighter right after they have said it, and some feel jittery all afternoon. I belong to the second group. The coffee tasted of nothing. Thục went quiet, then said "okay," and we walked back to the office without another word.

How to tell you did it right has little to do with Thục's reaction. It lies elsewhere: I had said one sentence that began with "I", with no padding laugh and no "just kidding", and when it was out I did not chase after it with explanations. After about a week, some people find the lunch table the same minus one joke, some find the other person still slips once or twice, and some find nothing has changed yet. None of those outcomes says the sentence failed.

On a day too busy, when you cannot find a moment with just the two of you, then the next time the joke comes, simply do not laugh, look at the person for a second, and say five words: "That one, no more." Even voice, even face. This short version is rough, but it is enough to let the other person know your laugh is no longer permission.

Where I almost took it back

"Just send it, and have peace."

"If you send it, what is left of yesterday's sentence?"

"But if you don't, the lunch table goes cold."

Three days after the coffee, Thục was not at the usual table. She ate with the accounting team, her back to me, her spoon clinking against her plate. My phone was open to a message: "I was only joking the other day, please don't take it to heart." My thumb was resting on the send button. I looked at it for exactly one minute, and it was the longest minute of the week.

The reason on the surface was that I was afraid of losing a friend. Yes, I was. But there was one more layer: that message would protect the lunch table, not me. Sending it would tell Thục that what happened was only a joke, which means everything goes back to how it was, impersonation included. And Thục's "I didn't mean anything by it" was true as well: she really did not mean anything, and it still made me unhappy. Both things were true at once. Nobody has to lose for the other to be true.

On the first day I felt as if I were standing outside in the sun. On the second day I opened the draft, reread it, and closed it again. Some people say three days feel like three weeks, and some find the second day already lighter than the first. For me each day was different, in no particular order.

There is one more place many people slip, and I nearly did: overcompensating. Buying Thục a milk tea, telling a long run of stories about growing up back home and why that accent matters to me, apologising for having spoken at all. It is tempting because it looks like responsibility. But it turns one gentle sentence into a trial the other person has to sit through, and it has me apologising for something that was not my fault. One sentence is enough. The rest belongs to ordinary days.

On the fourth day, the sound of sandals on the office floor stopped right beside my desk.

"I keep practising the word 'rua' and it still sounds off. Will you teach me?"

I burst out laughing, and this time it was not laughing along. The following week Thục slipped once more, then clapped a hand over her mouth, "oops, forgot," and I only looked at her and did not laugh. She laughed awkwardly. That was fine. This is not finished and probably never will be neatly finished.

If you have been drafting a conversation like this in your head for a long time, the conversation I rehearsed in my head for two weeks may sound familiar. And if the hard part is that even after speaking you want to apologise three times, there is another piece about saying no without apologising three times.

If you tried it and nothing came of it

This happens fairly often, so let me say it plainly.

The first common reason: your sentence still has a reproach hidden inside. "You're always like this" sounds as if it is about you, but it is really about the other person, and people answer that with defence. A test: reread the sentence, cross out "you", and put in "I". If the sentence no longer stands, it is not yet a gentle sentence.

The second common reason: the place and the moment. Said across a table of seven, right after a laugh, it backs the other person into a corner where they can only defend themselves. Move it to a walk, to a wait for the lift, or to a short message read when nobody is watching.

It is also possible that you said it correctly, said it kindly, and the other person carries on. That happens, and it does not mean you were wrong. But there is a line: if the jokes aimed at you continue after you have been clear, come from many people, or come with insults or threats, then this is no longer something to practise saying gently. Tell a friend you trust, or the part of your organisation that is responsible for listening, and look for support. The same goes if the feeling of being left outside the table lasts many weeks and starts to affect your sleep or eating: talking to a professional is an ordinary thing to do, and not only for the weak.

The following Thursday, the rice eatery still smelled of garlic and chilli fish sauce, and the ceiling fan was still turning slowly. Thục ordered her iced tea in her own voice.

I laughed, at something else.