Tori Bates - Part 4: Pretty Dresses Hiding Ugly Ideologies

[sleepy_doggos]

Re names that have nothing to do with your legal name: I don't know if it's universal across Thailand/Thai culture, but a lot of Thai people I know go by a really short nickname that doesn't sound derived from their real name (which is often quite long). 

This is so true! Every Thai person I know (99% live in thailand still) had a Thai nickname unrelated to their given name. The one man I knew who moved to the states chose an American nickname instead of his Thai nickname.

Many American people of Vietnamese heritage I know choose English derived nicknames to go by as well (lots of Brians, Davids, Brandons, and Taylors!). Not sure if they are chosen by their parents early or if they choose as adults, I haven't asked.

[nastyhobbitses]

4 hours ago, sleepy_doggos said:

This is so true! Every Thai person I know (99% live in thailand still) had a Thai nickname unrelated to their given name. The one man I knew who moved to the states chose an American nickname instead of his Thai nickname.

Many American people of Vietnamese heritage I know choose English derived nicknames to go by as well (lots of Brians, Davids, Brandons, and Taylors!). Not sure if they are chosen by their parents early or if they choose as adults, I haven't asked.

It's the same with China, though it's not universal. A lot of my Chinese (as in from China, not American-Born Chinese) friends chose English names in school when they started learning English because it was fun/cool to pick a name, but many also did because Chinese names can be difficult for English speakers to pronounce. Though my hope is that as more non-Chinese people learn to speak Mandarin and China remains a hot topic on the international stage, more people will learn to pronounce Chinese names, which will help eliminate what I think are rather negative/sad reasons to adopt an English name.

I will confess that I find some Vietnamese names really tough to pronounce; I think a lot of it comes down to a combination of me not knowing a whole lot of Vietnamese people, and that IMO, like with Irish, the Latin alphabet doesn't do a very good job of accurately representing the sounds of the language. 

[sleepy_doggos]

It's the same with China, though it's not universal. A lot of my Chinese (as in from China, not American-Born Chinese) friends chose English names in school when they started learning English because it was fun/cool to pick a name, but many also did because Chinese names can be difficult for English speakers to pronounce. Though my hope is that as more non-Chinese people learn to speak Mandarin and China remains a hot topic on the international stage, more people will learn to pronounce Chinese names, which will help eliminate what I think are rather negative/sad reasons to adopt an English name.
I will confess that I find some Vietnamese names really tough to pronounce; I think a lot of it comes down to a combination of me not knowing a whole lot of Vietnamese people, and that IMO, like with Irish, the Latin alphabet doesn't do a very good job of accurately representing the sounds of the language. 

Interesting observations. The main difference I can see between the choices: Thai people use common nicknames even among Thai-speaking groups (as far as I know), whereas the others discussed chose names for ease of English users. I must say that some American Vietnamese people I know use solely their Vietnamese names as well, though upon consideration maybe because people pronounce them correctly based on spelling. Or because of a host of other possible reasons (personal preference, pride in personal history, etc).

I do know a Thai (living in Thailand) woman who changed the spelling of her nickname because foreigners didn't pronounce the English letters as she expected and preferred. She interacted a lot with native English speakers for work and pleasure and it was important to her.

Native English speakers do have a very difficult time producing the sounds necessary to speak tonal languages properly, and it would certainly be helped by varied language education! It is excellent to be exposed to a wide range of spoken languages and I enjoy it when schools offer non-Romance language options (no offense to the languages but it is rare to find other language class options).

[TeaELSee]

Watching Bobby & Tori tonight was interesting. Tori confuses me. She apparently gets straight A’s and received a bachelors degree, however her english seems so poor. Her siblings close to her age have a much better grasp of grammar than she does. Is it something she does willfully, or does she really not know tenses, phrases or how to conjugate a verb?  Bobby looked to be internally cringing a few times during their interview. “I’m not a good cooker” 

What DOES Tori know or like to do? She is constantly stating she can’t or hates to do so many things. Here is what I recall, cooking, cleaning, decorating, moving, organizing, public speaking, shopping, wedding planning, and camping. On top of that she is an extremely picky eater.

Granted a lot of those things are not uncommon things to dislike but all of them seems excessive.  I guess my point is I don’t recall her saying anything she likes to do or is good at.  Does anyone recall if she has?

 

 

[llucie]

8 hours ago, TeaELSee said:

Watching Bobby & Tori tonight was interesting. Tori confuses me. She apparently gets straight A’s and received a bachelors degree, however her english seems so poor. Her siblings close to her age have a much better grasp of grammar than she does. Is it something she does willfully, or does she really not know tenses, phrases or how to conjugate a verb?  Bobby looked to be internally cringing a few times during their interview. “I’m not a good cooker” 

What DOES Tori know or like to do? She is constantly stating she can’t or hates to do so many things. Here is what I recall, cooking, cleaning, decorating, moving, organizing, public speaking, shopping, wedding planning, and camping. On top of that she is an extremely picky eater.

Granted a lot of those things are not uncommon things to dislike but all of them seems excessive.  I guess my point is I don’t recall her saying anything she likes to do or is good at.  Does anyone recall if she has?

 

 

lol no, but i guess she is good at studying, since she is the only Bates to finish a 4 year degree on time, and she even did the last semester pregnant. I also dont find her negativity cute at all, but i think she exagerates it on purpuse because she thinks its funny.

[formergothardite]

It could be that in writing she can use language properly, but she was raised in a family where no one corrected her poor grammar when she spoke and she just got in the habit of speaking that way. 

1 hour ago, llucie said:

I also dont find her negativity cute at all, but i think she exagerates it on purpuse because she thinks its funny.

That is the impression I get. She thinks it makes her look cute to talk about how she hates everything. 

[freethemall]

12 hours ago, TeaELSee said:

Watching Bobby & Tori tonight was interesting. Tori confuses me. She apparently gets straight A’s and received a bachelors degree, however her english seems so poor. Her siblings close to her age have a much better grasp of grammar than she does. Is it something she does willfully, or does she really not know tenses, phrases or how to conjugate a verb?  Bobby looked to be internally cringing a few times during their interview. “I’m not a good cooker” 

What DOES Tori know or like to do? She is constantly stating she can’t or hates to do so many things. Here is what I recall, cooking, cleaning, decorating, moving, organizing, public speaking, shopping, wedding planning, and camping. On top of that she is an extremely picky eater.

Granted a lot of those things are not uncommon things to dislike but all of them seems excessive.  I guess my point is I don’t recall her saying anything she likes to do or is good at.  Does anyone recall if she has?

She had a few instagram stories where she seemed very enthusiastic about teaching and crafting, I remember something where she wrote on popsicle sticks. She also seemed happy enough being out in nature during their honeymoon, exploring and traveling. Although maybe the main thing there is she was just happy being with Bobby alone. I wonder what she'll be like with a baby, I doubt she'll be as happy-go-lucky in her exhaustion like we see Erin and Alyssa all the time.

With the grammar - I'm sure a lot of it is cultural and family habits. It drives me crazy all the time, especially when they mistake "whenever" for "when", constant wrong subject/verb agreement errors where "were" and "was" are mixed up (E.g "The 2 best things about the wedding was the..."), and so many others. Whatever college degree she got, it didn't cancel out the bad SDRT education she grew up with.

[tumblr]

I got pretty good grades but my grammar isn't the best in writing and even worse in spoken word. If you asked me the rules of grammar I wouldn't struggle in listing them off but in spoken word it just never comes together that way? I could edit school papers together and get good grades but it took a lot of proof reading. Even good students have a weak area and grammar might be hers. She very well may really value her education and put a lot of effort into her good grades. Or maybe Crown/SODT just don't care? 

[BeccaGrim]

I think Tori hasn't been raised to believe that she should be proud to like anything. She's to be modest, meek, and always striving towards pleasing the men in her life. I'd say from watching, Tori likes to laugh, to sing, she likes children.  But she'll never say she's good at anything.  That wouldn't be how the cult has made her...

[llg1234]

I was watching the episode that had Tori and Bobby's apartment hunting and....

this manspread is ridiculous. 

[freethemall]

9 hours ago, BeccaGrim said:

I think Tori hasn't been raised to believe that she should be proud to like anything. She's to be modest, meek, and always striving towards pleasing the men in her life. I'd say from watching, Tori likes to laugh, to sing, she likes children.  But she'll never say she's good at anything.  That wouldn't be how the cult has made her...

Except we've seen examples where they showcase the other daughter's skills - Erin's piano playing and cooking, Carlin's yodeling, Josie's hair styling.

I'm watching the newest episode now and it just blows me away how Tori acts like she's never even been in a kitchen before. She's shocked you're supposed to heat the pan before putting the chicken on it, and is grossed out by the fresh basil. I was also half expecting her to cut off her finger the way she was chopping the basil.

[Lurky]

I've said this before, but I am never surprised that daughters in the mega families can't do things like cooking, because the families don't seem to rotate the jobs among their daughters, but keep them super-specialised, so eg Jinger Duggar was the one good at laundry, Jessa was good at organising etc.  Especially with the Bateses where they have clusters of daughters so close in age that it would be easy for one of them to do all the cooking and the others to never go near the kitchen.

It's one of the things that always baffles me, because these families make such a big deal about how the daughters are only allowed to do one thing when they grow up - be Quiverfull mothers - but they don't even bother to prepare them for these lives.  It's bad enough that the young girls are expected to sister-mom their siblings, but to send them out to start these lives with so little skills, just because it makes life easier to have one daughter learn to do something really well, rather than to eg rotate each of the tasks among 6 or 7 children (even, gasp! the sons!) so they all learn how to do everything about the house. 

In the same way, I'm never surprised when Fundy daughters struggle with having a toddler and a baby, because although they've sister-mom-ed 2 or 3 siblings, there's always been an age gap between them, so they've never had to eg work out whether to change the baby or the toddler's nappy first.  And the oldest buddy is co-sister-mom, but has never been expected to be fully responsible for the younger ones until her sister mom leaves home.  It's the weirdest thing to me - they hamstring their daughters with execrable "educations", but don't even give them the basics skills to have the one life they're allowed.  And rather than hide it, they show off about it on tv.

 

[JermajestyDuggar]

21 hours ago, Lurky said:

I've said this before, but I am never surprised that daughters in the mega families can't do things like cooking, because the families don't seem to rotate the jobs among their daughters, but keep them super-specialised, so eg Jinger Duggar was the one good at laundry, Jessa was good at organising etc.  Especially with the Bateses where they have clusters of daughters so close in age that it would be easy for one of them to do all the cooking and the others to never go near the kitchen.

It's one of the things that always baffles me, because these families make such a big deal about how the daughters are only allowed to do one thing when they grow up - be Quiverfull mothers - but they don't even bother to prepare them for these lives.  It's bad enough that the young girls are expected to sister-mom their siblings, but to send them out to start these lives with so little skills, just because it makes life easier to have one daughter learn to do something really well, rather than to eg rotate each of the tasks among 6 or 7 children (even, gasp! the sons!) so they all learn how to do everything about the house. 

In the same way, I'm never surprised when Fundy daughters struggle with having a toddler and a baby, because although they've sister-mom-ed 2 or 3 siblings, there's always been an age gap between them, so they've never had to eg work out whether to change the baby or the toddler's nappy first.  And the oldest buddy is co-sister-mom, but has never been expected to be fully responsible for the younger ones until her sister mom leaves home.  It's the weirdest thing to me - they hamstring their daughters with execrable "educations", but don't even give them the basics skills to have the one life they're allowed.  And rather than hide it, they show off about it on tv.

 

I have always thought everything you said. It makes me wonder if Kelly and Michelle will change their methods with the youngest children. The family dynamics will be so different once they only have a handful of the youngest ones left at home. 

[nelliebelle1197]

22 hours ago, Lurky said:

I've said this before, but I am never surprised that daughters in the mega families can't do things like cooking, because the families don't seem to rotate the jobs among their daughters, but keep them super-specialised, so eg Jinger Duggar was the one good at laundry, Jessa was good at organising etc.  Especially with the Bateses where they have clusters of daughters so close in age that it would be easy for one of them to do all the cooking and the others to never go near the kitchen.

It's one of the things that always baffles me, because these families make such a big deal about how the daughters are only allowed to do one thing when they grow up - be Quiverfull mothers - but they don't even bother to prepare them for these lives.  It's bad enough that the young girls are expected to sister-mom their siblings, but to send them out to start these lives with so little skills, just because it makes life easier to have one daughter learn to do something really well, rather than to eg rotate each of the tasks among 6 or 7 children (even, gasp! the sons!) so they all learn how to do everything about the house. 

In the same way, I'm never surprised when Fundy daughters struggle with having a toddler and a baby, because although they've sister-mom-ed 2 or 3 siblings, there's always been an age gap between them, so they've never had to eg work out whether to change the baby or the toddler's nappy first.  And the oldest buddy is co-sister-mom, but has never been expected to be fully responsible for the younger ones until her sister mom leaves home.  It's the weirdest thing to me - they hamstring their daughters with execrable "educations", but don't even give them the basics skills to have the one life they're allowed.  And rather than hide it, they show off about it on tv.

 

This is one thing that is actually good about Steve Maxwell's family. All the girls cook, clean, laundry, etc. Everyone has her specialty but everyone can do a little bit of everything. The boys even cooked and cleaned and the girls did construction.

Now, if he would just marry one off....

[Lurky]

4 hours ago, nelliebelle1197 said:

Now, if he would just marry one off....

It's interesting, looking at who's least-worst, isn't it?  Is it worse to teach kids the skills so that they can be independent, but never let them be, or push them out into the world without the most basic skills?  Sometimes I find myself thinking "oh well, at least the Bates aren't as bad as JRod/the Duggars" and have to remind myself what an awful, horrible low bar that it (I do think that's why we end up with people humping the Bateses - and obvs I am NOT including you in this @nelliebelle1197 - because they are less-bad than the Duggars etc)

[nelliebelle1197]

2 minutes ago, Lurky said:

It's interesting, looking at who's least-worst, isn't it?  Is it worse to teach kids the skills so that they can be independent, but never let them be, or push them out into the world without the most basic skills?  Sometimes I find myself thinking "oh well, at least the Bates aren't as bad as JRod/the Duggars" and have to remind myself what an awful, horrible low bar that it (I do think that's why we end up with people humping the Bateses - and obvs I am NOT including you in this @nelliebelle1197 - because they are less-bad than the Duggars etc)

And they all seem to be bad in different ways, which makes it all the more complex!

[Lurky]

18 minutes ago, nelliebelle1197 said:

And they all seem to be bad in different ways, which makes it all the more complex!

They're all The Worst!  This is why the FJ old chestnut of "who is worst, Jill R or Zsu?" is such a bad Q!

[nelliebelle1197]

7 minutes ago, Lurky said:

They're all The Worst!  This is why the FJ old chestnut of "who is worst, Jill R or Zsu?" is such a bad Q!

Maybe  we should start a poll!

[Lurky]

Just now, nelliebelle1197 said:

Maybe  we should start a poll!

Ha!  yes!  I'm still thinking about starting a poll for the top 10 worst JRod moments, except the Top 25 turned into about 150!

[nelliebelle1197]

1 hour ago, Lurky said:

Ha!  yes!  I'm still thinking about starting a poll for the top 10 worst JRod moments, except the Top 25 turned into about 150!

Do the top 25 for the last 25 months!

[llucie]

2 hours ago, Lurky said:

They're all The Worst!  This is why the FJ old chestnut of "who is worst, Jill R or Zsu?" is such a bad Q!

I used to think Zsu by a big margin, but Jill R has cached up recently.

[Seculardaisy]

Lawson posted this photo of Tori and Bobby’s home and honestly the fact the photos are not centered above the couch is really stressing me out.

 

[OyToTheVey]

14 hours ago, Seculardaisy said:

Lawson posted this photo of Tori and Bobby’s home and honestly the fact the photos are not centered above the couch is really stressing me out.

 

I love good symmetry. Just think of it as: the pictures are perfectly symmetric between the vents! Cuz tbh this is driving me crazy too.

[metheglyn]

16 hours ago, Seculardaisy said:

Lawson posted this photo of Tori and Bobby’s home and honestly the fact the photos are not centered above the couch is really stressing me out.

 

Gah, why would you do that? Maybe the room is dictating the placement of the couch, but then you need to adjust for that in your decorating! *shudders*

[just_ordinary]

My guess- there will be more pictures till it is a whole gallery wall. Need to have some space for all the baby pictures you see (and that might be a lot).