Chapter 1: Nicknames

When the idea of writing our childhood stories first mooted by Serene, the very first thing that came to mind is the gang of playmates I used to hang out with during our childhood days in the fifties and early sixties in the village.

Photo with courtesy from prweek.com

In those years, parents liked to think of all kinds of nicknames for their kids. We had a family in the village whose eldest son is called "Lap Chong" or Chinese sausage. The two youngest boys out of five siblings are nicknamed "Ah Tong" and "Ah Yam" which mean sugar and salt.

In another family, there is this youngest daughter being nicknamed "Ah Nee" which is Ant. Another family nicknamed the eldest three boys "Saw Chai", "Chu Chai" and "Kel Chai" which mean crazy kid, little piglet and little puppy. The eldest son of yet another family was nicknamed "Dongkui" which is the Chinese herb.

In that era, the adults believed that kids were prone to "disturbance" by ghosts or evil spirits resulting frequent illnesses or accidents. One way to avoid this is to give the kids "non-human" names such as names of animals, things or objects. With these nicknames, the ghosts or evil spirits would not be able to identify them as humans and so by-pass them without causing trouble. However, not all kids are given "non-human" nicknames. The healthy ones or those hardly encountered accidents would be called in their normal given names or more pleasant nicknames. When I was much older, I began to find this illogical - Could ghosts and evil spirits be so stupid that they could only hear and not see?

Of course there were kids given nicknames not because of the reason mentioned earlier but out of the affection and love of the parents. Some kids were offered a few nicknames to choose from and would be called by the choice chosen. Of course, some nicknames were given simply for fun or even ridicule. Among my primary school classmates, I have friends being called "Suitong" or water container, "Hamchenpiang" or Chinese deep-fried pancake, "Ma tel" or horse head, "Benfook" or flying fox and the list goes on.

In my family back then, the eldest boy was given a nickname but this was later changed when he was a teenager as suggested by the medicine man as a way to overcome his illness. The second son however is called by his given name. In my case, I was given a nickname which I discovered much older later on to be similar to one of my uncles' nickname. The only difference is the pitch. My mother told me that this was given to me because I liked the sound of it. 

To digress a little, I am the only one of the six siblings that a two-character given name rather than the standard three-character was inscribed on my birth certificate. Though I never got confirmation from my parents, I had the feeling that my parents were somehow very certain of having a daughter as a third child and therefore failed to think of a boy's name prior to the birth. The name was then an afterthought and as a consequence, I have to live with an alias all the rest of my life!

Years later when I was a teenager, I found nicknames to be dehumanizing and I was determined to free myself from being called by my nickname. It reached a point when I decided to stop responding whenever my nickname was called and this led to a severe confrontation with my mother. After that bitter incident, I was no longer called by my nickname. From that point, I also pledged never to give any dehumanizing nickname to any of my kids.

Of course, calling of nicknames to reflect the affection of parents as well as grandparents for their kids and grandkids continues..........You can hear the likes of "Boyboy", "Taitai", "Didi", "Ah Paul, "Ah Sam" ............

Nicknames will live on.