I Agree With You, Inga Gilchrist! (Re: ‘Pumpkin’)

My Singaporean neighbour, Winnie, and I have been following the news closely since learning about the little New Zealand Chinese girl who was abandoned at the Southern Cross train station. Before we found out what had happened to her mum, we wondered why she was abandoned. We almost naturally wondered if the little girl was abandoned simply because she is a girl. One of Winnie’s cousins was born in the year of the tiger in the 60’s and was given away because she was a girl. Winnie explained that people used to believe that girls born in the year of the tiger may never find suitable husbands. She said it had something to do with the Chinese Horoscope cycles. I know that there are 12 animals in the horoscope, rotating in a 12 year cycle but I only just learned that there are other cycles involved. It really is quite intriguing.

On Thursday, I picked up a copy of MX (free mini newspaper) to read on the tram. On page 4 was a piece written by a journalist named Inga Gilchrist. It was about the nickname ‘Pumpkin’, given to the lost little girl. Coincidentally, I too was wondering what a little Caucasian child would be called if he/she was abandoned in India. Sauerkraut or Brussels Sprout in Hindi? That evening, when Winnie popped over, I asked her for her opinion on this nickname. Her first response was that ‘Pumpkin’ sounded cute. She also said that everyone concerned should keep calling her ‘Pumpkin’ to keep things simple. Apparently, no one had managed to pronounce the names of the people involved in this case accurately in the daily news on TV. I secretly thought at the time of our conversation, that the newsreaders do not really want to learn to read the names properly. This could be partly because the parents and the child are not VIPs. It was only a couple of weeks ago, when most of them were pronouncing Hu Jin Tao’s name properly at APEC. A few did say ‘Hugh’ instead of ‘hoo’. Winnie also pointed out to me that even the Chinese language media (as shown in one of the short footages on Sky News) was referring the child as ‘Little Pumpkin’, in Chinese characters.

When I first met my Singaporean neighbour, he introduced himself as CK Leong and his wife as KH Wong. Yes, I was meant to call him CK and her KH. I did wish that they had given me a chance to call them by their given names. I would have tried my best to pronounce them properly. As I got to know them better, I did learn of their given names and do call them by those names occasionally. Their young son joined them later and he already had an anglicised name, Michael, even though the family is not Christian. Like the person the journalist mentioned in her article, who called a famous Chinese actress ‘the Z girl’, CK had a similar experience at work. His wife told me that people initially had trouble remembering the alphabetical combination. Some started to call him KC. His wife KH too, experienced the same at their son’s school. In Singapore, work colleagues had always called him CK and his wife by her given names. The couple decided to use the alphabetical initials of their given names for the both of them when they moved here, because people found it hard to pronounce their names. When people still find the initials tricky, they set out to find themselves anglicised names in frustration. So, CK was reintroduced to me as Leon (inspired by his surname) and his wife became Winnie. On learning that his wife is now Winnie, one young bloke at his workplace asked why he didn’t choose the name Vinnie for himself. He was not amused.

I agree with the MX journalist, Inga Gilchrist that we should make more of an effort. These are people’s names, given to them by their parents. Winnie said that Chinese names are usually carefully selected or created with pride. I think we ought to show newcomers respect and give them a warm welcome to our country. We shouldn’t be expecting them to learn all about us and live like us without learning a thing or two about them. They have heaps to enlighten us on.

Note: In my posts, I have referred to this family as my Singaporean neighbours. Some people may find it offensive that I keep describing them as Singaporean but I am only doing this on the blog. It is easier to give the readers of this blog a bit of background information on the people I am talking about. I can’t refer to them as just plain old ‘neighbours’ because I know quite a few in this building of 144 households. I have English neighbours, New Zealand neighbours, Korean neighbours, and since a month ago, Indian neighbours. It is not done intentionally to offend negatively.