I could just imagine wat was going on in the minds of those present there!
“Man, he is slow...”
“Is he mentally challenged?”
“He probably doesn’t have any frens...”
Well, the reason i took a moment to reply was because there was no one right answer! Different frens call me differently!!!! In fact, you can tell who they are just by how they call me! One group calls me “Lai”, another group “Mun” and frens of me family calls me “Onn”. Let me elaborate:-
“Mun Onn”
This is prolly the most common name i am called. It consists of me first and middle name in Cantonese. Me church frens call me that. So do all me school mates from primary and secondary school.
However, only one person ever pronounced it the correct way – this girl from Hong Kong who attended the same church i did in Essex.
“Lai”
This is my surname. If you hear someone call me that, it has to be me ex-coursemates from me undergraduate days. The person responsible for causing that is one of me lecturers during our first year. He called all those with Chinese names (and without English forenames) by their surnames. Since during the first few weeks of our first year, we were strangers to each other, we remembered each others’ names by wat our lecturer called us – so they called me “Lai” while others were called “Ling”, “Hong” etc.
All those who used to work under me when i was a lawyer still refers to me as “Mr. Lai”. I remember telling this lawyer – who used to be a chambering student when i was practising – not to refer to me by “Mr. Lai” in our present e-mails – but he said that it was difficult to break the habit!
“Mun”
There are many groups which call me this and there are different... erm... tones(?). The first ever group was the Senior Scouts Patrol – for some reason, we called each other by our first name only, unlike others in school who usually refer to us by our first and middle name. So it was “Mun”, “Kit”, “Tiang”, “Boon”, “Pak”, “Yok”.
The next group are me workmates in Uni. I thought it’d be easier for these Mat Sallehs to just call me “Mun” – and easier for them to remember too! See, how thoughtful i am!
Then, when i started working at the Chinese restaurant, the name stuck. But since they were mainly Cantonese speaking Hongkies and M’sians there, they called me “Ah Mun”. Somehow, the spelling of that evolved to “Man”!!!! I used to joke wif me colleagues that i had since become “da man”!!!
Me cousemates at UoE and lecturers also refer to me as “Mun” – altho some get the pronunciation wrong while another gave me a special one-of-a-kind nickname (see here).
“Onn”
Me family calls me that. As such, frens of me family call me that too – as well as all me relatives.
“Min An”
This is my name in Mandarin. All me mates from China call me that – except Jane who is from Guangdong and speaks Cantonese fluently. It took me quite a while to realise it but me Mandarin speaking mates from China had great difficulty pronouncing “Mun”!!! You should see how they would struggle to do so (if you dun believe me, find a China student and test him/her) and how they would be overcome wif relief when i told them to just call me Min An!
In truth, after a while, i really liked being called that! In fact, i was thinking of introducing meself by that from then on – but then i remembered that me passport, student card, bank accounts, credit cards, identification card, driving license all uses me Cantonese transliteration – so i guess i'll have to stick to Mun Onn.
p/s - This list does not include nicknames like "Newton", "Munster", "Chris", "Obi-Mun", "Bangun" etc.
*This was thier biggest hit from their album, "The Writing's On The Wall" when they used to consist of 4 members!
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