birthday

today, being my birthday, i’ll talk about i, me and myself. if you don’t fancy reading about the wholly me, do not continue further.

ok first of all, my name. when olivia blog about her name… how people always got it wrong, it gave me an idea to blog on my name too.

i’m proud of my name as it’s not a common name. this name was given to me by my godmother (who is my grand-uncle’s daughter) when i was baptised (baptism with holy spirit) a few months after birth. ‘lucia’ is actually the italian version of ‘lucy’ and the way to pronounce it the italian way is ‘lu-chee-ya’ (hope i’m right) but nobody here calls me by that name of course! however, there seems to be lots of different variation of my name. my family and ex school mates call me as ‘lu sheer’, you know, with the last syllable ending in like the name of patricia, marcia. then when i started working, my colleagues call me ‘lu sia’ instead. however i like to introduce myself as ‘lu sear’. i feel this pronunciation is best as it sounds nice. not many people though call me by this name.

so now it stand that i have 3 pronunciations to my names – different people knows me by different names… which at times cause confusion… each time when i speak to a friend on the phone, i must remember which name that friend remember me by. those who call me ‘lu shear’ if i say i’m ‘lu sia’, they won’t know who i am… or will take some time to guess who i am!

now about my family. i tell everyone i have 2 brothers and a sister, and i’m the youngest (so there are 4 children in our family), but actually i’m not the youngest. actually there are 8 of us children. well, what’s the mystery there, you may ask. simple. i have 4 younger siblings who were given away (adopted by other people) when there were still little. why were they given away… of course because my parents were poor at that time and couldn’t afford to feed the extra mouths. 2 girls, C & T, who are younger than me by 3 years are twins and they were adopted by an australian couple, who already had 10 children of their own! (and a few of them were adopted too). they are now staying on their own in perth and have good jobs. next, younger than me by 5 years is also a girl, M, staying in new south wales, australia with her husband and 2 daughters. the finally comes a boy, G, who is in sydney. now M & G are both adopted by the same parents.

we do keep in touch with all my 4 siblings. the twins we started corresponding with them when they were only 10 years old or so as their parents were very open minded, having told them they were adopted and told them of their real family. whereas M & G’s parents only let them keep in touch with us when they were adults.

all the 3 girls were taken away by their parents when they were around 3 or 4 years old while the boy was taken away when he was just a baby. so in a way i grew up without them, and in a way it’s right to say i’m the youngest in my family.

right in the beginning i mentioned my birthday is today, right? actually you know, my birthday falls on 14 april. i understand that 14 april was a saturday and i was born around 6.00pm that day, and that day/time the birth registration office was closed, so my parents went to register my birth on monday, i.e. 16. i suppose my parents being uneducated and all that, just let the registrar clerk recorded that day itself when they went there as my birth date, hence i had been celebrating my birthday on 16 april every year.

when i was a child, i remember looking forward to my birthday as i get to eat boiled ‘red eggs’ and sometimes ‘mee suah’. these are the chinese traditional must-have for birthdays… at least it is a must-have to those conservative ‘old’ people. the ‘red egg’ is just a normal boiled egg except that the shell is dye with red dye. when a baby turned one month old, chinese too like to give ‘red eggs’ as part of the gift to friends and relatives.

red eggs are chosen as gifts probably because they are the symbol of changing process of life and their round shape is the symbol of harmonious and happy life. they are made red because red color is a sign of happiness in Chinese culture.

the ‘mee suah’ is a type of noodle in the family of noodles ‘bee hoon’ and ‘mee’. it is very thin and long. because it is long, the chinese believe by eating the ‘mee suah’ one will have long life! since i came from a poor family during my childhood, i did not receive presents from my family, except that my parents gave me extra pocket money. of course there was no birthday parties for me as a child… can’t afford! well i was contented with my ‘red eggs’.

i see my nieces and nephews these days so ‘ho mia’ (lucky). every year during their birthdays, they had birthday parties – invited friends, parents cook/make so much delicious food, and friends came with birthday presents. nothing at all like this for me when i was a child. even as i grew into teenager, i never celebrate my birthdays… but my mother always remember to make ‘red eggs’ for me on my birthday. occasionally i will celebrate my birthday with a school friend by going for ‘makan’ or movies together, or occasionally my family will have a small ‘makan’ with me together, that’s all… not every year.

then comes the BIG birthday – 21 – the coming of age, the age where we are suppose to receive the key to freedom, the age where we are officially adults! yes, i did celebrate my 21st birthday. i had a barbecue dinner and invited many of my friends. my parents had a cake made in the shape of a key for me! i had the most wonderful time with my friends, family and relatives. that was the only time i celebrated in a big way my birthday. oh yeah, my mother gave me a gold key pendant of course. seemed like (at least at those times) a gold key is compulsory coming from your parents to you. the gold key is sort of to signify your ‘liberation’ from your parents.

nowadays i don’t celebrate my birthday anymore. i see no point to celebrating birthday every year… at least for one who is getting old! (ahem!). however, among my family, we do remember each other’s birthdays and always give gift of ‘ang pow’ to each other, and the kids are taught to never fail to wish the ‘elders’ happy birthday. oh, though i say i don’t celebrate my birthday but on my birthday, i will usually give a ‘makan’ treat to my close friends or family.

ok everybody, thanks for your birthday wishes. just “happy birthday” will do ok… don’t add “how old are you?”. 🙂