I have always thought that my name is different.
Its not that simple to explain the reason, (what was) the big idea behind it and its significance. And this has been going on for the last 40 years.
Nope, I have never complained to my old man about it, rather I appreciated his wisdom at arriving to this name -- Zukri Valenteno bin Mohd Ali. Was told that it was his decision all the way and Mak was not involved.
Not only that my name was different: being a very Melayu with an Italian name since most of the times people would have expected a Caucasian or at least a Caucasian-looking person!
But not this Valenteno. An Alor Setar-born Valenteno who is Melayu, can this be real? People still ask me thesedays. One can never imagine the difficulties growing up there in the conservative Melayu surroundings in the early 1970s and later in Kinrara in the suburbs of Kuala Lumpur. I had illustrated the story(ies) behind my name in earlier posting, dated June 15, 2008.
During my primary school days in St.Johns Institution Kuala Lumpur there was another person with an equally different name -- Cyrus Reza. His reason: it was given by his diplomat father after the famous US Secretary of State Cyruss Vance. And there was also Akhbar Khan in our class, who was named after the famous conquerer. We also had a son of a Melayu-Mat Salleh mixed parentage by the name of Mohd Johan Musa (elder brother of Harith Iskandar Musa the comic) who looked more Mat Salleh than his Melayu name! All in the class of 1975. And there was also Nazrin Abdul Wahab, a very Chinese-looking guy in our class.
Anyway, most of the times people had always spelt my name wrongly – Valentino instead of Valenteno. It was a actually a variant of the name which sounds the same and they thought I had my name wrong!
No offence taken since it is not everyday that one meet up with a Valenteno and probably the only Valenteno they knew was Valentino! They could have been influenced by the famous Italian designer of whom I certainly have no family connection. His family originated from Florence while mine, I was told, came from a small village in Palermo, Sicily. You believe that?
But then again I have always thought my name was really difficult to understand, until I came across this article in a local daily today…
KUALA LUMPUR: A retired senior police officer, who was charged with raping a mentally disabled woman five years ago, was yesterday ordered by the Sessions Court to enter his defence.
Judge Datin Anita Harun said in her decision at the end of the prosecution's case, that they had succeeded in proving a prima facie case against retired assistant commissioner Mat Susah Sadikin.
Mat Susah, 66, was formerly an officer with the Special Branch at the Federal police headquarters in Bukit Aman.
He had been charged on Dec 7, 2006 with raping the 23-year-old woman in a storeroom of his grocery store, at Jalan Raja Muda, Kampung Baru, here, between 4pm and 7pm in October 2003.
I could only imagine his life was indeed difficult, having difficult as his name. And right now, he is even more in difficult situation! Imagine the reason to name your own with such a difficult name? Literally and now perhaps figuratively as with the above case with Encik Mat Susah...
I have heard of names like Mat Aje Lah instead of Mat (perhaps what the father meant was "just Mat",) Ogu Salim instead of Agus Salim, Mohd Hitler Zami (yes, a film director he is and son of comedian Zami Ismail), one Harry Salzman (a Melayu, perhaps named after the James Bond fame) who is a pixman with our national news agency Bernama and one Mohd Soeharto Ismail (the last I heard he was with a government departmen in Putrajaya).
Difficult name these are...no?