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Rate This Contest Entry: Contest: June 30th, 2005 Author: Aw Ee Khem When I was born, my parents gave me the onomatopoeic name ‘Aw Ee Khem’. "If you parents really love you, why did they name you Aw Ee?" Because they believed that vertical and horizontal mouth exercises are the secret to stimulating the cerebral cortex for superior intellectual development, so every time someone calls my name (“ AW Eeeee!”) they will instantly gain 10 IQ points, and thus a slow but steady revolution will be set in motion for eventual world peace. Ah, my parents; true visionaries (though my mum’s myopic), who, for the public good, had to address early the intellectual and social chaos that will ensue when chewing gum is eventually banned in Singapore, depriving 2.5 million brains of better blood flow from constant jaw exercise (and that's the real reason for the Asian currency crisis). If your cranium does not care for such onslaught, consider this alternative explanation: • "Aw" is the surname; the Chinese always put their surnames first (yup, there are people other than the Americans who must always do things differently from the rest of the world). After all, we are collectively one-fifth of the world population, but that's absolutely no reason to feel any pressure to copy us. • "Ee" is our family's generation name for female grandchildren of my grandfather Aw Peng Nam, a distinguished businessman and philanthropist formerly from Ipoh, Perak, West Malaysia, originally from Hokkien Province, China. You can only pull this off if you have many sons, who later have many daughters. With eight sons bearing at least 10 daughters among them, we have a pretty procession of Ee Tuan, Ee Khem, Ee Leng, Ee Lee, Ee Kheng, Ee Meng, Ee Va, ... and so on. I've lost count 'cos my fair cousins are scattered all over Australiasia and I haven't seen any of them in years. But by our monikers we shall proclaim our blood ties forevermore. As it turns out, my given name is thus "Ee Khem". And on this is based the "in-camp training" jokes of my youth that naturally arise when my peers become of NS age, not helped by that fact that 'camp' in Malay is 'khemah'; I learnt that reading the multilingual warning sign (with the picture of a trespasser being shot) at the gate of the army camp we returned my brother to one fateful evening. 'NS' is what every full-blooded Singapore male has to do when he turns 18. No, not Non-stop Sex, although a lot of that goes on for boys aged 18, but "National Service", being called to serve in the Singapore Armed Forces for two and a half years (then) while their female peers get a head-start both in the workforce and the university, as was the common complaint. To be fair, they have never said it to my face, the well-mannered Singaporean gentlemen that they are (well, outside the camp gates at least). Also, you would not believe it seeing me today, but I was a real looker in my youth, even won a few beauty pageants. Given the tendency for people to pronounce my surname ‘Au’ or ‘ow’ as that was more common, wolfish hostel mates invariably started howling when I saunter past in my singlet, shorts, and flipflops. Occasionally, this was followed by a sharp “ow” when a slipper hits someone’s head. Despite this, I was happy to keep to my original name; I knew no one else called “Khem” in one form or other, and thus my uniqueness was assured. Unlike many, I also did not feel any need to take on a "cool" alternative English name, because ... hey, I was already "cool" (and very humble about it). Then, we moved to Perth, Western Australia. The signs were there years before we set foot as permanent residents on Perthian soil in the second half of 2004, just before land prices reached for the sky. Graduating with a Master's degree from an Australian university (I love you too much to mention your name; any Australian university would have done the same), I was rewarded with the cheery salutation of "Ee Aw" every time the postgraduate newsletter arrived. So, to smoothen social encounters in the Land of Plenty, and to minimize the chance of people turning into donkeys when they meet me, I consulted my numerology baby names book and came up with "Alexis", androgynous as preferred, and imbued with powers to catapult my writing career to the heavens (well, a girl can dream, can’t she?). And, to clearly indicate the portions of my name, I pinned "Ee” to “Khem" forming “Ee-Khem” to restrict the birth of “camel”, “clammy”, “camera”, and “cameo”–sounding variations. You would think that’s the end of the naming story, but now I would sometimes be called Alexi, Alexa, Allison, Eliza, or –my favourite—Elvira. To finally wrap up my name story (already!), you certainly can call me Al, but I may not answer; I am busy planning an alternate identity under the persona of “Elvira, mistress of the dark” … mwahahahaha ... people have rated it so far. is the current average. |
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