Today, Keatkeat blurted: “I Hate it when people call me Cheng Ki-at! I want them to call Cheng K-eat!”

*scream*

I know I have mentioned it before in this blog post “For The 3rd Time” that ALL his teachers call him Cheng Ki-at, instead of Cheng K-eat, or to be clearer, its pronounced as Cheng Kit.

When I was pregnant with Keatkeat, Allan and I took special effort to make sure that his name could not be made fun of, but little did we expect that what sounded like ‘Kit‘ to us, actually was pronounced as ‘Kiat‘ to 99% of the people.

His name on the birth certificate is Cheng Keat.

‘Eat‘ with a ‘K‘ infront, should sound like ‘Kit‘, wouldn’t it?
Well, after so many years, it has proven to us that it does NOT to majority of the people.

To many whom we met, ‘Keat‘ is actually pronounced as ‘Kiat‘.

Now that we go to Malaysia so often, NONE, yes, NONE of the custom officers pronounced Keatkeat’s name the way we intended it to be pronounced. He is very upset and I could do NOTHING to help!

*scream*

So I decided to give him an additional name ‘Zac‘. I informed all his teachers and even wrote the name ‘Zac‘ on all his school books. I was hoping that his teachers would now call him ‘Zac‘ instead and not by his dialect name anymore.

To my great disappointment, Keatkeat’s teachers said that ‘Zac‘ is NOT reflected in his Birth Certificate, hence it is not recorded in the school system, therefore they REFUSED to call him ‘Zac‘.

Small Note: His spelling has changed recently from ‘Zac’ to ‘Zec‘, as in ‘Zechariah’.

 

I checked with ICA and found out that I could NOT change his name until he is 15 years old, when he does his IC registration in school.

He is only turning 9 years old in November this year, he had to go through this agony for another 6 years?! *heart dropped*

I am angry with myself for NOT checking how people usually pronounce ‘Keat‘ before its printed on his Birth Certificate.

Now, its all too late and there is nothing I could do to help my child.

I am so sorry, Keatkeat……
*hands covered face*

 

 

My Son Hates his Name!