Chapter : Nicknames

Growing up we all have been given nicknames by our parents, friends, lovers and foes. I in particular have accumulated a fair amount of nicknames since when I was a bald and toothless baby to the current “me” I am today. Funny how that some nicknames are related to our personalities and some are just based on our names or some just doesn't make sense. 

When I was a baby, my mom told me that everyone from my dad’s side of the family calls me “ham pao pao” which means crybaby (I also heard that it also meant hamburger but I don’t understand, speak or write Chinese so I’m going to follow what my mom told me). Well she said that I would cry at anything and everything. I would cry if my siblings bullied me, I would cry when I don’t get things my way, technically, like a small brat. Last time, I tend to cry quite easily but now I am able to laugh and cry at the same time, talk normally but tears would still stream down my cheeks. Those days, my parents would always say these same lines to me, “Every little thing also you cry. Little bit little bit also cry." At least I'm better now, I don't cry that easily unless provoked or have some sort of hormonal imbalance or something.

Remember that ONE time where Tamiya was such a HUGE fad? Every boy would be seen having one (well, most of the boys I knew owns at least ONE Tamiya car) and they would bring parts to “modify” their own cars so it would race faster and stuffs. Well, there was this one particular Tamiya car which was called “Shooting Star” and soon my primary school classmates started calling me that because my Chinese name is Su Ting (there were many others but let’s just choose the most famous one…) So throughout that period of time, my classmates would address me as Shooting Star instead of Su Ting and I actually answered to these name callings. Those were the days…

When I was Form 2, I shifted from Damansara Utama school to Taman Tun school. It was scary as I needed to start afresh, making new friends and it doesn’t help that my self-esteem was really low because the day before I started in the new school, I had the most disastrous and hideous haircut ever (now I will never ever cut my hair into a boyish hairdo no matter how much my mom says that I look good in it because I don’t.) Anyway, I managed to adapt myself to my new school pretty quickly and was making friends. Reaching Form 4, I was in the art stream and most of my friends were in the pure science or sub-science stream and I am only able to hang out with them during recess hour. This is where I started to get close to my Malay classmates and learn how to speak their “slang”. Then one of my classmates decided to call me, “Siti” (a common Malay name for a girl) because I was speaking Malay like an authentic Malay person and then started telling his friends to do the same. This particular joker also asked some of the teachers to address me as “Siti” too and the easy-going teachers actually did. That lasted for a while but now they don’t call me “Siti” anymore, they just shorten my name from Su Ting to “Sting”  (also pronounced as "Steng").

Then moving on college days, where I learnt that sleep was overrated. I don’t really recall when or how it happened, but my college mates started calling me “Pigeon”. If I’m not mistaken, it was because that they saw me fooling around imitating a pigeon call and said it sounded exactly like the real thing or maybe cause I keep making pigeon sounds…I’m confused. Till now, there are some that still calls me “Pigeon” and I answer to that nickname. My best friend, Joey calls me by one special nickname; she always calls me “Mangkuk”. It means bowl in Malay by the way and untill now, I don’t know why she calls me that but I find it amusing. It’s like this special bond we have created just between us.

Here are a few more…

1. alwizhyper – my ever famous nickname that I use in my emails and online games and much more. People said that I’m constantly hyper and always bursting with energy but as I get older…the energy is burning out.
2. Monkey – my boyfriend calls me that and at times Joey would call me that too. It’s because I make faces, talk nonsense, have a short attention span and very mischievious.
3. “Cina Murtad” – well, I’m not sure how to explain this because I think it varies overtime or something but what my friends told me last time (years back)…it means that a Chinese person that “changed” into a Malay person or a Malay person in a Chinese body (?). Will reconfirm this with my friends…

Well, I can’t think of anymore. So what’s yours?