Social Bullying

Your weekly tiny positivity

I want to share a personal story which happened to me in primary school with you this week...

After graduating from a local kindergarten in Hong Kong, I headed to a Catholic primary school. I wasn't a good-looking kid, and I was super quiet. Classmates and older kids created this name and song for me that went something like:

"Slanted eyes, mushroom hair, toilet bowl with poop, and fox lips."

In Chinese: it's 《矇豬眼，冬菇頭，屎塔蓋，笠住個狐狸嘴》。

"Slanted eyes" because of my small eyes, "mushroom hair" and "toilet bowl with poop" because of my haircut, and "fox lips" because of my thick lips, which are rare in Asia. My mum and dad both have average lip size.

Every morning, they'd sing this song in the school van. I dreaded going to school and prayed a lot that it would stop one day. This affected my self-confidence later on. I'd try to hide my thick lips when taking pictures and didn't really embrace my looks. I was ashamed of how I looked.

Back then, we didn't have the same focus on inclusive language and diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) that we do today.

I don't remember how long it lasted, but I eventually befriended some older, rebellious kids, which helped others leave me alone. But this led to other behavioral problems. For example, in year one, I swore at my English teacher and said "F*** your mother".

She slapped me on the face in front of all forty classmates.

That's the story I want to share this week.

If you have young children or teenagers navigating tough times at school, feel free to share my story and use it to have an open dialogue with them.

"Have they seen something like this at school?"

If they're misbehaving, try to look past their behavior and find out what's really going on. Introduce more tools for them to use, different outlets to redirect their energy.

I wasn't a good-looking kid; I had a mean song and names after me. I never told anyone, not even my parents. Now that it's over, I want to share this message with young kids and teenagers to save lives.

You are loved. You are good enough. If you are trying to coping with difficult challenges, do sports, talk to your parents, pray if you need to; there are many positive outlets around you.

Thanks for reading! See you next week.

Evolve Together,

Aaron