‘Mickey’ and ‘Geraham’
Published by simon on February 1, 2008There’s this contractor in our project, an old man with white hair called Chong. His name is Chong, his namecard is Chong, and everyone calls him Chong, although most of his underlings call him ‘lou sai’ (boss).
But not my colleague - he calls the old man something that sounds like ‘Mien Jee’. His Chinese name isn’t anything close to that, and besides, Mien Jee sounds like a girl’s name (in fact my wife has a friend with that name).
So after about a year, i tak boleh tahan already and asked my colleague why ‘Mien Jee’. This was the explanation - Back in the early 80’s when they were working in another project, everyone called Chong ‘Mickey Mouse’ because:
a) He was thin and small;
b) He had big ears like aforementioned celebrity mouse.
So ‘Mickey Mouse’ became ‘Mickey’ and then to ‘Maggi Mee’ and somehow later Hokkienified to ‘Mien Jee’.
Mystery solved.
My old friend Raymond once told me this other one from his schooling days. There’s guy called Ding in his school whom everyone calls ‘geraham’. For those of you who packed up their Bahasa Malaysia 101 years ago,
gigi geraham = molar teeth.
What’s the connection? Well, poor Mr. Ding’s name was forever made fun of, one of it was ‘Ding Dong Bell’, etc. Kids can be mean. But anyway, ‘Ding Dong Bell’ somehow became ‘Alexander Graham Bell’ and then Graham became ‘geraham’.
One day i might tell you the story of why the girls in my school called me ‘hot stuff’… 
lolol will be waiting for that.;D
and thanks for posting it up.:)
We can pick their names carefully but we cannot control their looks and….the creativity of their peers!!!
I don’t believe your final statement!
I guess it’s because you were not cool during those days
maybe because u were short and fat and u were always stuffing yourself with hot food.
hi hot stuff
maybe like mien jee and geraham, your hot stuff is evolved from something else? hor fun? how style?
Hi! I am new here. Just started in the realm of blogging. Must learn form the sifu’s.
Anyway, ‘hot stuff’ can only mean that you were the brad pitt or tom cruise of the school!
It’s the creative human mind that comes up with the most spectacular nicknames.
My chemistry teacher was a Mrs. Liew. Her nickname: Liew-kimia (Leukemia).
Art teacher: Puan Mona.
Nickname: Monalisa.
Luckily, no nicknames created for me back at school.
But I know of some schoolmates who got teased real bad because of their names. You know-lah, how kids are at primary level.
So what’s the hot stuff story all about?
jayelle - no problem. don’t think i’ll be taking an express bus anymore…
ann - kids can be really mean, especially these days.
infectioner - har har…
chubikia - maybe after CNY i’ll be fat la…
lucia - hor fun would be funny! lol!
bidalufias - welkome, welkome.
moomykin - there was a cikgu monalisa in my school also. she looked a bit like the painting.
tot’s mom - yeah, i’ve had friends who got it bad, esp the uumm… ‘heavy’ kids.
ekaterina - one day lah…
This is a great post, I love it! Nicknames are so rampant especially with school kids…you tell me yours and I’ll tell you mine…
hot stuff? bwahahahaha! i had 1001 nicknames. some of them were quite lewd/nsfw too, ahaks!
Ok hotstuff, dazzle us.
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