The man who allegedly massacred 13 people at a New York community service center 
has been identified as a Vietnamese immigrant - prompting some people to scratch their heads, “How’s Jiverly Wong (pictured) a Vietnamese name?”
If that’s the question in your mind, you’ve come to the right place.
The key to understanding the 41-year-old’s name is in the spelling his father uses, Henry Voong.
That is a typical Vietnamese spelling of a name that’s very common in the Nùng ethnic group. The Nung are a proud people whose living area spans the inland Southeast Asia and overlaps Vietnam, Laos, Thailand and China. A loose analogy may be to the Kurds in the Middle East, who are numerous and live in a large area but (at least until recently) have never had their own independent nation.
Believed to have originated in current-day Thailand, the majority of this ethnicity now live in Guangxi, China. Because they are so spread out, there are some Nung who think of themselves as Chinese, or as Laotian, or as Vietnamese – in addition to considering themselves Nung.
The name Voòng is the common Vietnamese spelling for the same family name that is spelled Vang by Nung living in Laos (same spelling as in General Vang Pao but Vang Pao is Hmong), Wong in Cantonese Chinese, or Wang in Mandarin Chinese.
Which indicates that Jiverly Wong, who also used the name Jiverly Voong, may be a Nung from Vietnam.
A note on pronunciation: The double-o in Voòng is rare in Vietnamese. The Bolsavik only knows of two words with that spelling: boong (the deck of a boat) and xoong (a pot that you cook with). The sound “oong” in Vietnamese is used to denote the open “ong” as in the English “long” or “strong” where your mouth is open after saying it. The Vietnamese “ong” as in ong (a bee), Long (the first name), Phong (the first name), etc. ends with your mouth closed.
According to AP news, Jiverly Wong is a Vietnamese-Chinese-American. He was born in Vietnam, but his parents are ethically Chinese-Vietnamese. I think Voong is a mispelling of “Vuong”??
Anyway, I am so mad that another crazy Asian dude is a mass murderer.
Why?!
Mass murderers come from all ethnic backgrounds and Asians are no exception. Behind each horrific act usually lies a very sad story on the part of the person who commited it. I am not trying to defense Voong or any thing but this might be also the time to think about how we as a society have treated certain individuals that we consider “misfits”. Troubles start with schoolyard bullying, discrimination based on race, sexual orientation, etc And then there are people who are medically depressed or just simply crazy. What a tragedy!
Really good post, extremely informative.
Also, thanks for posting an entry about this unfortunate incident. This blog needs to cover all important, relevant news stories in the Vietnamese community. That means the good news as well as the bad news (and everything in between)
Thanks the Bolsavik for a great research on the “Voòng” family name. I thought this man belongs to the “Hmong” ethnic minority until I learned from from this article that he could be a Nùng.
It’s heart broken to see so many mass murderings in the US in the last few weeks, but I’m not surprise. Easy access to powerful guns (thanks to NRA) has made the wanton killing of a large number of unresisting human beings an easier task.
A few years ago, after one of the first mass murder on a college campus, I correctly predicted that thanks to the liberal gun law in the US, this kind of bloody massacre would happen again and again, and it would happen often enough to become a social norm. Human being has the tendency to learn and repeat others’ bad habits. Mass slaughter indiscriminately has become another option for a depressed person.
It’s very sad and very scary to realize that in the US, in the last few weeks, we heard about mass slaughters in the news as often as freeway chasings or driveby shootings. What has become of the US, where a person undergoing economic hardship, or temporary losing his mind over an argument, can easily resort to mass murder ?
Until the US adapt stricter guns control laws, we’ll see a lot more of those bloody mass slaughters -with quicker rate of occurence.
Elaine Mai
There are people out there who switch between nationality and ethnicity willy nilly. When they do anything bad, they claim to be Viet because they were either born or raised there, but when a Viet asks what their heritage is, they claim to be Chinese(“Hoa”), clearly disassociating themselves from the VN country and culture, implying Viets are no good.
Non Viets don’t know the difference, so when they hear Vietnamese, they get the idea that most Viets are bad people.
Whatever…
Viets do not kill people indiscriniminately; they may deceive indiscriminately. They usually target a specific individual. Also, they do not take down a large group of people; the largest is a family in a home invasion to steal their possession.
Non-Viet asians carry out random acts of violence. For example, the hostage ordeal up on Northern California years ago. A bunch of non-Viet asians held up the local Circuit City and decided to execute a random hostage to prove their point.
Another example is the Chinese American Ng who went around with his friend kidnapping and killing women and children. Not Viet – Chinese.
Another is the Chinese Canadian guy killing a random victim because he had lost his job.
This sort of random act of violence and large target group does not fit the profile of a Viet criminal – he usually commits it to survive, not to vent his frustration or anger.
This Voong or freak is not a Viet!
Jiverly Wong was a Chinese man born in Vietnam. The ethnic Chinese community in Vietnam generally identify themselves with China. Once emigrating, they often identify themselves publicly and on official papers as 100% Chinese. That’s understandable. Perhaps it feels better to identify with a bigger and stronger country and a more prominent culture.
Now this vietnamese community makes me sick! They tax cheat, they paid cash work, they exploit their own partner, they do dirty politics…
and now??? when someone is successfull, they say he or she is a vietnamese. when someone is not, then he is no vietnamese. So cool! I think now he has solid reason to go with the shooting, just that he didn’t shoot at the right people!
remember that other ethics will just says “oh he is an asian, and he is refugees.” In bad case like that, they will quickly remember him as a Vietnamese.
so if this ignorant and selfish community starts to argue like “sh*t, he is no part of us, we r all good”, then hell! I think the US should ship all those vietnamese to …. THE MOON!
I am sick of all these arguments about “viet -non viet”. What difference does it make? A tragedy is a tragedy! When you are crazy or dispaired, it wouldn’t make any difference where you come from! Now, if you want to get down to that childish level of who is Viet, who is not, for your information, a young Vietnamese man who lived 5 blocks away from me killed 6 relatives and friends when they were shoving rice in their mouths on a Sunday. Now, would you hurry up and prove that perhaps his aunt-in-law’s step father’s cousin’s neighbor’s fiance’s teacher’s brother was Chinese?
People with discriminate and selfish minds like Lil Saigon Man and True Vietnamese are the exact reasons why we have people who go angry and beserk & go on a shooting rampage. It’s probably a good idea to round these 2 up to prevent future massacre? We should go beyond looking at the gunman and start studying the ones who instigated the tragedy!
Viets do bad things for sure but not the large scale random killings. The example above proves my point that the killer knew his victims, so yes, he fits the profile of a Viet killer.
As for the last blog, discussion of a topic equates to being it?
Lil Saigon man, you are racist!
I am part Chinese too, so to you, I am more likely to kill strangers that someone who is as pure as you? I hope you are still a little kid, otherwise you are a sad case of humans who live long but haven’t learned much about human nature!
Look at those perfect Viets,
You are completely right.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-me-serialkillers5-2009apr05,0,2434292.story
The FBI study and profile killers, and they discriminate and therefore have selfish minds. Those people are truly dangerous with real weapons too. You should try to stop and study them. Hahaha.
Either that or you have only started reading the news in the last few years, that’s why you missed out on those events such as a Vietnamese man who went on a shooting spree at an electronic department in Utah in the 90s. Or was he Chinese too?
You certainly read that article without thinking deeply enough: the profile of a typical mass murderer is linked to his/her social/economic background, not to ethnicity. Read it again and this time do some thinking, you right-wing teenager!
Never said Chinese people are killers, only identifying worst cases, and the individuals’ ethnicity. Can you send a link to that story? Like to read it.
Please be careful about what you read and hear from sources that are anonymous. There are many errors. This is just a blog and not really researched by an actual news writer. This is only an informative data and not actual fact.
Elaine Mai, if you don’t like our gun laws, then maybe you should re-consider being such a staunch Republican.
For those of you who don’t see this guy as a Vietnamese, there are nearly 60 ethnic groups in Vietnam. Many of you are actually members of these groups without even knowing it. Many common Vietnamese surnames have ethnic minority origins.
li’l saigon man, you do sound like a racist.
http://www.ocregister.com/articles/police-beach-long-2355068-cal-viejo
With all due respect to the poor souls who didn’t deserve to die in New York, my thoughts and prayers are with the victims and their families at this difficult time.
Like all Americans, I was shocked and horrified to learn the deaths of innocent people and the heartfelt stories from the survivors and the loved ones of those who lost their lives.
Apparently, the easy answer people most often use about massacre involving guns is to demonize the NRA. But who can explain a man decapitated his 5-year old sister in her birthday party?
Who can explain madmen? Who can explain evil?
This is the time we should speak from reason and not sentiment. Pointing fingers, which is bad, and it reveals blind spots in our rationale, inhibiting our ability to fully grasp our predicament.
Of course, there is a lot of self-recrimination in our society afterward about the warning signs we should have seen. But now, there is no need for us to go digging into exactly where all the hate is coming from.
We must ask ourselves “What can we do to make sure it never happens again!”
There are those who have suggested bizarre and preposterous measures such as gun control, legalize “mari-gee-wana”, honest police department, and limit CEO bonus as a way of dealing with the problem that might trigger any crackpot goes loco.
The simple answer is, like the lady said: it takes a village.
The slightly more complicated answer is:
“God, why is there suffering? Can’t you take away misery?”
“No. Of course not, don’t be silly.
If I took away misery, no one would talk to me.”
All these accusations and no solid proof to disprove my earlier opinion. What did I say? Viet killers fit a certain profile:
1. They know the victims and do not kill randomly or
2. They do not take on a large group, largest is a family as in home invasion or
3. They victimize their own kind or
4. They commit such a crime for monetary reasons, not for the thrill of it.
Examples you cite support one of the above conditions. What kind of bloggers are you? Information at your finger tips and can’t come up with anything solid. How sad is that?
Now, here is some information you can read and come up with your own conclusion.
The sort of killing Jiverly Wong engaged in is classified as serial killing.
Read the common traits of a serial killer:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_killer#Serial_killers_in_history
The above examples I cited:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Ng
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,398222,00.html
http://www.sacbee.com/1219/gallery/1281485.html
No one to call my bluff! What kind of bloggers am I dealing with?
Jose S, do I sound like a racist only or am a racist or both?
Master XYZ, you rock the boat as always.
Sorry Lil Saigon, that incident happened before email and internet news became popular, so I don’t have any link for you.
Re: gun control: it would be a tough battle because the Repub won’t loosen their teeth on this billion-dollars a year business. In the mean time, those who collect guns, usually in the heartland, will fight tooth and nail to be able to protect this dated hobby, thinking that they still live in the wild wild west era. Little do they know, America is the laughing stocks of the world: Hahaha! Hahaha! Look at the fat people with their guns!!!
God, Guns, Television! Amen!
Look at those perfect Viets,
You said: Sorry Lil Saigon, that incident happened before email and internet news became popular, so I don’t have any link for you.
I am calling your bluff. If I was able to pull up the an article so should you.
Someone is lying and it’s not me…
Hahaha. Have a good evening.
Alright, I give up! You won-I lost!Have a sweet dream!
Lil’ Saigon… I agree… Vietnamese are ALL good and Chinese are ALL bad… now why don’t you Vietnamese angels all get the hell out of our Chinatowns since we are so bad and murderous? Every Chinatown in the US are full of you midget Viets and your ugly Vietnamese writing scribbled on our buildings. We might as well rename all the American Chinatowns “Little Saigons,” so that good ol’ white people think that us Chinese all live in slums, drive ricers and go to community colleges like you Viets do.
Get out!
Lil’ Saigon… I agree… Vietnamese are ALL good and Chinese are ALL bad… now why don’t you Vietnamese angels all get the hell out of our Chinatowns since we are so bad and murderous? Every Chinatown in the US are full of you midget Viets and your ugly Vietnamese writing scribbled on our buildings. We might as well rename all the American Chinatowns “Little Saigons,” so that good ol’ white people won’t think that us Chinese all live in slums, drive ricers and go to community colleges like you spiky-haired Viets do.
Get out!
Good lord, I observe this debate with a “great pleasure.” First it was HILARIOUS to see one guys brought all types of solid evident and rhetoric argument to prove that this guys is not a typical viet murder but maybe chinese or whoever. Then, it turns to be a battle between which ethnicity is good, and which is bad…
Great job, you all adult people.
Well I have a boring job to do. I just visit a church a long bolsa avenue where they have esl class. I will go there, try to find sth “boring”to do, and hopefully have a chance to tell them …
“….hey I think we r lucky to be here, and u better learn english and be successfull or u’ll be all crazy someday!”
But maybe it is a good news. Firstly, America is safer because a crazy man was dead. Secondly, America become less congested for 13 people has gone with the bullets. Thirdly, if we compute the amount of CO2 and garbage these 13 people and their descendants could produce if they were still alive, we may realize that this mass murder is really helpful to our beloved environment. Fourthly, the undertakers , the police and the media have an additional chance to do their jobs. Fifthly, the US citizens now have a chance to think about ” what the heck is happening to this country?”. And lastly, Mr Bolsavik has a new entry just to debate whether the murderer’s name is Annamese or not.
Personally, I extremely sympathize with this poor crazy man.Haply he just wanted his lack of voice to be heard. If I had a gun and some bullets here, I would no doubt make the first mass murder in Vietnam. Loneliness, distress, depression, lack of money, lack of freedom, failure in love … so many things can lead a man into an evil alley. I think the guy firstly just wanted to kill himself but he then realized that dying alone is no fun so he came to get some companions. And they just go together when they go. What a comforting thought that is to know! That is a celestial bereavement, so inspiring an achievement of this guy.
” ăn không được đạp đổ” , an old VN proverb lol
@ Murderous Chink : You chinks are asses, we Viets are asses too. So what is the problem here? You want to figure out which nation is more asinine?
“If I had a gun and some bullets here, I would no doubt make the first mass murder in Vietnam” Good thing there tight gun control in Vietnam, you gotta give the Vietnamese government credit for that. Unless Republicanism is brought there by returning Vietnamese in their lovely Hawaiiwan shirts and tennis shoes and ear-piercing English(-:
@Murderous Chinese:
if you go to dowtown chinatown in LA (the city), most are chinese vn; they will say so. the other chinese ethnicities have moved on to other cities. as a matter of fact, taiwanese chinese will distinguish themselves from the rest. mandarin-speaking the same. then the cantonese speaking. then hong kong. the chinese vn are on the bottom rung because they are considered not pure heritage. that is a fact.chinese society has its own ethnicity structure; do not fool yourself.
what is very cool is to see vn language on food stuff at these chinese supermarkets for the viet patrons. in fact, some will stop speaking chinese and assist in explaining the item in vn.
how can one not be thankful for having such wonderful human beings around?
XYZ wrote :
“Apparently, the easy answer people most often use about massacre involving guns is to demonize the NRA. But who can explain a man decapitated his 5-year old sister in her birthday party? ”
Ofcourse you can’t stop crazy people from hurting their victims, but it’s obvious that powerful guns are the most efficient & vicious way for crazy people to commit mass killings. If you see a mad man swinging wildly with a knife, you still have a good chance to run away, but if he got a semi automatic machine gun, your survival chance is pretty slim.
The reason you don’t see many masacres in other countries because they have strict guns control law. Just look at Mr. An’s email above, he may be just kidding when he said “If I had a gun and some bullets here, I would no doubt make the first mass murder in Vietnam.” but then we never know, An could be a sick man and he would carry out his stupid threat if he had an easy access to powerful guns.
Mai Linh
@Elaine Mai
What this guy did is truly psychologically reasonable so don’t blame the gun control issue. People are so ingenious, if someone really want to kill, he will find his own method regardless there is a gun control law or not. Think about a razor infected with HIV as a good example. To be gunned down or to live with HIV, which is the more catastrophic? – It is your choice.
Moreover, my dear Elaine Mai, your imagination is too tedious as a matter of fact. Why don’t you imagine how sick I would be if I had the power like Hitler’s, Stalin’s, Mao’s… rather than just if I had an easy access to powerful guns? Everyone has simultaneously an angel and a devil in his own soul, and which one would be released depends on the particular situations. I don’t know why you hypocrites always try to be goody-goody when talking about these problems. Why don’t you people just imagine what you would do if you were in this Wong guy’s situation? Would you kill more or less?
In short, I always judge things by reason, not passion. So in my opinion this incident is really natural, it is a part of our human nature. If your friend relative was killed, just blame his fate and don’t be panic and feel lost for you will meet him in heaven or hell soon.
it doesnt matter viet or chinese or white or black. human killed human and since you live in this country they will immediately racist you if you aren’t white. Murderers or killers are everywhere…
ooops, I forgot to check the spelling in my posts
When a Canadian of Chinese descent won an Olympic gold medal, Bolsavik ran headline “A Vietnamese Canadian won Olympic gold medal.” This time a Vietnam-born American of Chinese descent committed mass murdering, Bolsavik tries to explain that the killer is not so… Viet. Ha!
Mr. An wrote “I don’t know why you hypocrites always try to be goody-goody when talking about these problems. Why don’t you people just imagine what you would do if you were in this Wong guy’s situation? Would you kill more or less? ”
Mr An, I was in Wong’s situation a few times : unemployed, depressed, angry … but the thoughts of killing myself or killing someone never crossed my mind. For a normal and healthy person, it’s absolutely normal to be unemployed and feeling angry and depress, but only sick individuals
would entertain themselves with the thoughts of killing themselves and taking many others with them. ”ăn không được đạp đổ” is a selfish, nasty, evil, shameful, cowardly conception. ” ăn không được đạp đổ” only exists in the mind of mentally unstable individuals. We are not hypocrites when we are horrified and very upset to see someone coldly shootdown innocent victims, we’re just NORMAL people.
Mr. An, take it like a man : if you’re depress and losing the will to live, just throw yourself in front of a moving train, or shoot yourself in the head, but please don’t try to take anyone with you. I know it’s kind of lonely, painful and scary to die … alone, but please be courage. Try to walk through that cold, dark, and unknown tunnel alone, it’s your fate. Don’t be a coward. It’s your life and your death, yours and yours alone. You’re absolutely free to do whatever you want with it, but please don’t touch someone else.
Elaine Mai.
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An, I felt sorry for you. A man who wanna have a mass murder on his people is the man that truly experiences “Loneliness, distress, depression, lack of money, lack of freedom, failure in love.” What does this have to do with Vietnam anyway? Are you blaming Vietnam for this man’s action? “What this guy did is truly psychologically reasonable so don’t blame the gun control issue” , yes he got mental problem but if we have a gun control, is the massacre gonna happen? I don’t think so
I agree with Le De’ni blog. Many people of Vietnamese descent are living in denial, e.g., some people still say the Vietnam war is not over yet!
A Nu`ng born in Vietnam is a Vietnamese. We are proud when a N`ung has some achievements, thus, we must bear the shame when a Nu`ng commits a horrible act.
Quelle honte! Les minorite ethniques au Vietnam travaillent et payent ses impots comme le reste du monde. Quoi que les vietnamiens ne veulent pas les reconnaitre, ils (ces Hmong, Nung, Chinois) sont vietnamiens! Il faut regarder la verite en face! De plus, l’important c’est pas l’ethnicite des assassin mais ce qu’on doit faire pour les prevenir!
This was a good lesson for everyone….. we need to pay close attention to less fortunate people around our community.
My prayers are with victim’s family members.
Je suis d’accord avec Viet Hypocrite. Certains d’entre nous sont très hypocrites. Ils toujours prennent le crédit mais ne veulent jamais prendre le blâme.
Would you rather face a guy who had two guns coming at you, or someone with two bacon cheeseburgers coming at you?
Well, that is a no-brainer.
And this is because people don’t know foods can kill you.
Too much of fattening food leading to diabetes, cardiovascular diseases.
Here is the statistics:
Cardiovascular disease is our number-one killer. (39%)
Cancer is number two. (23%)
Lung disease is number three. (5.1%)
Diabetes is number four. (2.9%)
Motor Vehicle Accidents is number seven. (1.8%)
Gun-related deaths is number ten (1.2%)
How many times have you played slot machines and hoped to win?
What is the probability of winning a jackpot?
I don’t need a degree in fuzzy math to know that 1.2% < 39%
I make a living taking care of patients suffering through slow but far more painful death from terminal diseases (I am not talking about getting sick at the airport), and it is so painful that they just want quick and painless exit, which brings up the question of euthanasia and assisted suicide that remind us the two visionaries: Heidi Fleiss and Dr Kevorkian – the queen and the king of coming and going.
Gun violence has inspired an outcry for gun control, but everyone is missing the big picture here. Whether it takes few seconds to die or years to die, the death is always the same.
Quick death or slow death – death is death.
But hey, if you want gun control, how about some coronary eatery control?
Your hamburger can’t be bigger than your ass.
If you add more types of meat on a bacon cheeseburger, you are denied health insurance.
“Heidi Fleiss and Dr Kevorkian – the queen and the king of coming and going.”
Hahaha, good post here…..One tiny speeling error i think.
should it spelled: The queen of cumming Heidi Fleiss?
And gun control?..How about automobile ban?..Driving a 2 tons of steel and combustible gasoline down the freeway at 60 mph is kind of not safe right?..Especially when you run over a group of gun control lobbyists?..
A gun is simply just a device to sling a piece of lead at higher velocity, farting loud noise and some smoke, and it takes skills to direct that piece of lead to hit your intended target…that s it. At close range, a kitchen knife or a baseball bat will do greater damages to a human body, should we ban those too?..
You are what you eat!
?????
So i d be turned into a woman if i ve been eating them?..Duh.
If you have been eating human flesh……. you belong inside of the mental institution before we hang you like Sadam with a rusty rope.