Is that a silent T or not?

When I had pigtails and ribbons in my hair, I was envious of girls who have long fancy names. I used to think they sound really pretty. Girls with names like Jennifer, Stephanie, Angeline, Elizabeth, Samantha etc. I used to give myself a new name everyday. On mondays I will be Veronica. Tuesdays Madeline. Wednesdays I fancy Belinda and it goes on and on. My parents look on with amusement whenever I sign my art pieces with every other name but my own.

I was adamant about the names, and choosy to a fault. Any names without at least three syllabus was looked down upon. They HAVE to be fancy shmancy, frilly schilly.

When I entered primary school, the nightmare with my real name begin.

"Err...Z-Zhi Ming is that it?"
"How do you pronounce this?"
"Ze Min?"
"Err, I cant read this. Something Min?"

I used to cringe and cower in my seat whenever my name was called. It seems nobody could get it right. I made a vow on that very day in the first week of primary one, my kids will never have to suffer through the same ordeal. I will give them beautiful names, princessy names. Maybe I will even give them two names. Something like, Elizabeth Karen Lee. And if its a male, I will let my husband do the honours, my childish mind firmly decided.

However, when I was in the midst of secondary school, my preference for names swung back and forth. Like most trends, my fancy couldnt hold for long. One moment I wanted edgy names, names no one could pronounced, names no one would have. ( It was that period where EVERONE wanted to have something nobody had.) Names like Schyler, Xaveira, Desiree. And at another I wanted names with double Ls. Names like Danielle, Joelle, Gazelle. There was time where I wanted boys names too. Names like Alex, Randy, Sam.

I used to whine to my mother, why couldnt you have given me an english name? why oh why? She always said, "Because I want you to choose one for yourself when you are older. I dont want you to be stuck with a name you dislike forever."
At that point of time, I didnt understand what she meant and always sulked and muttered, "I would have liked it if it was english."
She always smiled gently and said, "You will understand when you are older."

How I loathed that sentence! It seemed to me like, for every question they could not come up with a plausible enough reason, they will whip out this sentence as an arsenal. And I will lose, because how could I come up with a good enough retort for that?

But now that I'm reasonably older, I begun to see the light.

With each growing phase, our mindset changes. When I was young I wanted big fancy Tiffanies or Jennifers, but when I was an angsty age of fourteen, I couldnt bear the thought of having such a frilly, pink sounding name. And at sixteen, I shudder at the Xavies, Desirees which I thought was cool two years ago. New friends come and old ones go, and with each new environment and influence, my thinking evolved too. Now that Im seventeen, I couldnt really care less about names, and silently thanked my mother each time the teacher called on another student to answer the questions just because he couldnt pronounce mine. Who knows? Maybe when Im eighteen, I might just call myself Adrianna.

But Rhys does sound pretty cool though. (:

On my first day in a JC, my new teacher told the class to inform her if we preferred to be called something beside your proper name. A few in my class gave her english names, and we have been calling them that ever since. She asked me whether I had one and maybe I should get one because my name is a mouthful, I smiled and said,


"No thanks, Miss. Tze will be fine, just fine."