"Wellington, I hate you!"

That first line of the play got a big laugh as the actor came in with a broken umbrella. That moment onwards, I knew he would appreciate the play as he had just come back from Wellington 2 days ago. It gave him a great taste of kiwi humour and both of us enjoyed it with painful stomachs from unstopping laughing!

However, when he called me 淑涵 (my Chinese name Shu-Han) so nicely, I found it highly disturbing. I guess I have never grown out of it. As kids, we weren't used to call each other by our first and second names together. Instead, there were always plenty alternative nicknames that we could use. Some were even cute and intimate, but being called or calling someone by first and second names is a totally different matter.

For me, it means intimacy in a soul level.

I only got used to this kind of name calling custom between girls just before I left for New Zealand, but with guys, I have never got chance to grow out of it. In the last 10 years, I have created another me, which has always been referred as Anita. I guess for me, the name "Anita" will always be like a car registration number, which is just a convention/label, and will never become as profound as Shu-Han to me.

There are less and less ppl calling me Shu-Han now and sadly I think I'll never grow out of being feeling disturbing and feel intimate with guys calling my soul name.