a name to call

a month ago, before my husband came to amsterdam. one of my flatmate asked me about his name, she learnt about his name through my FB and asked me how to pronounce it correctly. She did that bcos apparently I hardly address him by name whenever I talked about him.

that kinda hit me. yes it is true, I never address my husband by name, as third person in a conversation or when I call him. Probably bcos in my culture, it is considered not polite and un-respect to do so. as a wife and a younger person, I should address him with certain title as mas or else.  and also bcos in our daily conversation I always call him, baby or sayang. which is kinda embarrassing to bring it up in the conversation, such as…’yes, my baby works at his own company’….you would not caught me saying that. ever! To my closest friend and family, I still address him as mas hengky, cos they also call him that, and to some other just Hengky if they’re older than me or my husband. But to other friend, such as my flatmate, I will just say ‘my husband’

But I did had hard time addressing him when we first dated 11 years ago, there are many suffixes for older brother or man in Indonesian culture.  Like bang, mas or kak….which all lead to the same meaning. but it is used based on his cultural background, for instances Javanese man should go with ‘mas…’  So here is the problem, I am a Javanese and my husband is Chinese. as Chinese, he should be called ‘koko…’ but he refused that, only his siblings are allowed to call him that. Also bcos I found myself a bit weird calling him that….so I call him ‘mas’….just that, not followed by his name. also bcos I felt that is weird. a javanese suffix followed by a chinese name. no no no……

But then I guess he loved it, so he started using that suffix a lot, as if it is part of his name. If u check my link, his blog is also with mashengky.com. Most of his email also goes with this name. lately some people also follow his lead, creating a blog using mas bla bla bla, and he complained about how people using his trademark.

For me personally, there is no special name for him…I call him suamiku (my husband), baby, sayang,mas, koko, si gendut…..all of that, depending on the situation and context of our conversation. Well, why goes with one if you can have them all….after all you can only have one husband (at one time) to call.

and how he call me? that’s another story to tell.