in case some of you don't know yet, i have a paternal cousin who's named after me. his name is John Chua. now, with all due respect to my third aunt (she's the mother) and myself, i think it's a really bad choice to name your son after a gay dude (the paternal family somehow suspects). you know what they say about names and how people's characters soon grow to fit the names. apparently, some of the biggest traits associated with MY name (or at least a derivative of my name) seems to have rubbed off my dear cousin, who just started primary schooling this year. the BIGGEST trait in question could have been my big gregarious nature, my big generous pockets, my big heart of gold or my even bigger nether regions. but noooooo! the cousin had to inherit the gayhood behind my name. yeah. you read that right. i think my primary 1 cousin is starting to effete a feminine quality to himself. of course, you could claim that i say this in the same light as i proclaim the brother's query gay status (he's as straight as an arrow; and a vagina-seeking arrow at that).

the cousin hides himself behind books all the time. he wears glasses. he has the occasional limp wrist. and the one thing that i can't stand about him: he cries when he can't solve any problem by himself. be it mathematics, the schoolyard bully or wetting his pants in school. he even cries when he cannot defeat his much much older cousins in Worms or Tekken. and all his milk teeth are dropping off now. so he's practically toothless except for several of the front teeth. when he smiles, he looks ridiculous. a bit like a way younger version of an old man. still, he bawls till he gets attention. and the parents give a mix of sometimes ignorance and sometimes full-blown attention. apparently, the parents are armed with degrees in Childhood Guidance (or something along those lines).

anyways, the story goes that John Chua had to bring something related to Chinese New Year for a show-and-tell session in school. so he came back home all toothless and happy, asking his mother to help him find something he could bring to school. and search, she did. she reached for the first CNY-related item that she saw, a giant pineapple look-alike display. the pineapple had little 'seeds' that stuck out from the side. these 'seeds' were actually filled with jelly and definitely edible. and to top (or more like bottom) it off, there's a quaint little red plate for the pineapple to sit on. it's all so chinese-y and it screams chinese cymbals and gongs without making a single sound. just look at the picture.

John Chua's mother being a devoted christian and schooled in english thought she did a pretty good job finding something within such a short time. it was some dirtcheap trinket she got at the NTUC Supermarket at the shopping mall beside her condominium. an impulse buy, if you must. now she had to get rid of it and it was perfect. she gave the son specific instructions: 'make sure you give all the jellies to your friends, i don't want you to come back with the pineapple!'.

thank goodness, though. John had obviously much better taste when it comes to show-and-tell (and i hope this trait comes from my name). he was mortified that he had to carry such a wierd-looking object to school. my grandmother who always sends him down to the school bus refused to carry it for him. so imagine a 7 year old schooling kid in uniform and a big schoolbag carrying a gigantic pineapple complete with the quaint red plate. bizarre, isn't it? it was prolly what the security guard at the condominium entrance thought too, while my grandmother and John passed him.

'Sembayang??' he shouted to my grandmother from afar.

my grandmother started laughing. John assumed that she was laughing at him. but in truth, she was laughing because the security guard thought that John was bringing the pineapple to school for some sort of offering. 'Sembayang' translated from Behasa Melayu translates into 'offerings'. the type that the chinese use for ancestral/idol-worship. it's actually perfect for an altar filled with joss sticks, honey cakes and an ancestral plate. but not in the arms of a 7 year old boy on his way to school. at least now we know what the red plate is for.

still, i don't blame the mother. she never saw it coming, given her christian background and all. and you know what's the biggest irony of this story? John Chua's teacher totally forgot about the show-and-tell and cancelled it. all the Sembayang hoo-hah over nothing.

i bet John Chua now is waving his effeminate wrist and throwing a tantrum. thanks to me, in a small part.

---