The Name They Gave Me (Excerpt)

An excerpt from a longer work.

My name is Dixin, pronounced disin. That was how my mother whispered it when she was tired. That was how my grandmother said it when she needed my attention. That was how I said it to myself before I understood it could be taken.

My father chose it from a dictionary. He liked how it sounded more than what it meant.

Di was the half he chose. An obscure character, too scientific, too strange to be recognised as real. It belonged to no one. Xin, the other half, means pretty. I think that part was my mother’s.

At home, it softened into Xinxin. Sometimes Da Xinzi when my grandmother wanted my attention.

The name changed depending on who called me, but it always stayed. It was never mistaken there.

My grandmother stretched the second syllable as if there were more time inside it. My mother said it quickly, already moving on.

Even at Chinese school, children said I was lying. The character didn’t exist. At the dentist, the receptionist couldn’t find it in her system. She had to write it in by hand. It was more trouble than a name should be.

On the first day of school, the teacher looked at the attendance sheet and decided otherwise.

“Dixon,” she said, as if she were doing me a favour.

I nodded. I was five. Disappearing was something I had already learned.

She wrote Dixon on my cubby.

She wrote Dixon on the birthday chart.

She wrote Dixon on every worksheet I took home.

My mother asked why I did not correct anyone. I did not know how to tell her that silence felt safer than insisting on myself.