My Name

Yijia Yan, this is my name. "A serious and good man." No fancy words or deep meanings, ordinary just like a drop of water in the ocean. The name made me think about the number "1". There were 5 ones at the my time of birth and it makes me to throw my full effort every time to get the best, the first place. The color gray, is another thing I always think about. The name is very normal just like the color grey, so ordinary that no one were going to mention.

Yijia Yan, a simple name in China, but there was a great story behind it. My name "mission" didn't start until my mom has been pregnant for 8 months. Before that, my dad always used the excuses like "I have got business." or "I'm busy." or something else to avoid it. Is making my name really that hard? Since then all my grand parents, and also my dad went to the library searching for the words that have deep meaning for my name. But at last, the words were either too deep, or too hard to write. Finally, my mom gave me the birth on October the first which was China's national day. It suppose to be a happy day but unfortunately, I still didn't have a name. That's when my dad gets hot-headed, the nurse was pressing on dad to think a name to fill up by birth certification. All in a sudden, the lightning of wisdom flashed through my dad's brain. "Yan Guoqing" (Celebration of nation), it sounds like an old dirty tractor booming with black smoke but dad thought that would be a good name for me. I cried so hard ← a little confused here. do you mean as a baby I cried so hard??when I heard that name and successfully kicked that name out. Then, the real lightning finally flashed across my dad and he gave me the name "Yijia". That's how I get my name. When I became bigger, I asked dad for the meaning. "Both my and your mom's name have got an one inside, the capital one in my name was too hard to write so I just gave you the one with only one draw," Dad replied, "And also I want you to be a good man, so I gave you "Jia" for good. Simple, but nice." Yijia Yan, "Be a good man", simple, but nice.

Yijia Yan, a tricky name, most of people can't pronounce it well and some used it as a tool to tease me. I am not a vegetarian but I don't like ducks, especially salted ducks. Why? Because I was a "salted duck"! Because of the pronunciation of my name, I started to be teased in my elementary school. One day, a guy in my class who likes joking gave me a "nickname": "salted duck" because that's really close to the sound of my name. At first, I didn't care about these people but gradually, more people started to call me "salted duck" and that really annoyed me. I wanted to fight back but it seems there were no weakness about their name. That made me thought my name was the worst one in the world, I wanted to change a name, whatever another one, but when mom and dad asked me what I want to be called, I suddenly got no idea. So I kept my name and still now. Once upon a time, I almost fought with someone. That was one day in G3 at lunch break, the one guy who I don' really like started to calling my nickname once and once around me annoying like a mosquito and I was just kept quite and do my own work. But he didn't stop, he kept buzzing around, finally I was at the max point and when I was just going to explode, teacher came in. In that time teachers were like the kings and all the students were like the slaves, no one wanted to get into some troubles even they hated the teacher so much. So both of us sat down quietly and started reading books acting like nothing just happened. Teacher didn't not know and "war" and every one was safe. The next day the guy apologized to me initiatively and I also forgave him. I gradually got used to my nickname and I didn't care about them anymore. My nickname kept till the end of grade 5, when we were going to be separated. The classmates said sorry for calling my name and said they did it as a joke. Yeh, joke. But it really made me sad when I was young. Maybe that's why now I am so patient and calm when people pronounce my name funny like "Asia" or "Yijei".

Yijia Yan, that is my name. It’s ordinary, it’s hard to pronounce and it may let others tease me. But, it contains the best wishes from my parents, it leads me towards success and the most important is that it tells me how to behave myself. Yijia Yan, a simple but nice name, is just perfect to me.