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My Daily Poem, Jan 8, 9 2004
nicknames are thrown
around in my family;
our own terms of endearment
word could not describe.
it is that closeness
towards each other
through words that evoke
a special experience
with a brother or sister
or just a plain description of
his uniqueness.
a brother is called La Ting
because of his bald head when a
baby.
eldest brother is labelled Ming
instead of his real name Thai
because of his intelligence
when a child.
Ming means clear-minded.
Another is called Lung
instead of Ing because of his
Chinese horoscope sign dragon
which in Mandarin is Lung.
mom's favourite animal sign
is dragon so the name sticks.
youngest brother is Bee,
my own spontaneous invention
when I saw the cute little child
in mom's hands many years back.
I am so glad and proud
that this is the only creation
in my life that has been used
for so long and that it
has surprisingly given
brother all the good luck;
he turns out to be a bank's manager.
he should have me to thank
for all his fortune.
another brother is called Chi
instead of his real name Kui.
i could not fathom the
reason for this and wonder
which brother first started
calling him that.
eldest sister is Pui
instead of Hua because
of her plumbness when a baby.
and oh dear, we are naughty
when it comes to our neighbours.
many of them have secret nicknames
coined from the way they
talk, walk, and even look
and we really hope they would
never ever find out these names.
Our family just bubble in
our neighbourhood because of
our incessant inner creative jest
to coin all those secret words.
perhaps, we are nicknamed too
which we never
bother about because
we know nicknames are
given out of endearment.
at least, that is the case with us.
STRAITS OF MALACCA
straits of malacca,
the treacherous divider
between Malaysia, Sumatra.
a line between poverty, wealth.
a storm beats into the sea tonight,
lightning outlines a motorboat
negotiating its way
through the waves furious
as if angry at trespassers.
the straits that has
witnessed great volumes
of sunken treasures,
cruelest of pirates,
greediest of colonisers,
human traffickers
and the profitable
spice trade
tonight witnesses
fate of a different kind;
poverty striken
sumatrans in their bid
to come to Malaysian shores.
The human traffickers
in their anxiety to
run off from marine cops,
push them off
pointing to Malaysian shore
still a few kilometres away.
their cries are muffled
by the waves and the old engines of the
motorboat which considers
its mission accomplished this time;
yes, arrival at Malaysian shore
albeit in waves few kilometres off.
The sorrow of the sumatrans
could only be seen in their
scowled faces as their corpses
float down the straits, some
lost, some fished up.
Like the waves of the straits
that continue pounding the shores,
this illegal trafficking continues
punctuated by such heartstirring
happening perhaps to remind us
how lucky most of us are.
