Of Terms of Endearment and Steamed Buns

As a sign of affection, we often hear couples use words like "Sweetheart", "Love", "Honey", "Baby", and "Darling" when they lovingly call out to each other. Among married couples, I've observed a lot of instances where the wife called the husband "Papa" or "Hubby" and where the husband addressed his wife as "Mama".

The above are some of the examples of the terms of endearment that couples and lovers use. Most of these terms, as you may very well have observed, have favorable associations with sweetness or the nature of the relationship.

But there are instances when some couples veer away from such conventions. They decide to use terms that are unique to them and their relationship. In a lot of ways, the term used is akin to an insiders' joke, something that only the two of them can relate to.

I know of this couple where the woman decided to focus on the man's facial cheeks as basis for coming up with her own term of endearment. You see, the guy's cheeks are of the "pinchably" chubby type. The reasons for it are not only weight-related but also genetic. Quite a number of his family members share the same physical "problem". Hehe

As a result, the woman has resorted to using the term "Siopao" (pronounced Shaw-pow) as her term of endearment for her dear boyfriend. Siopao, for the benefit of non-Filipino readers, is the Filipino version of the Chinese steamed bun. It is a popular food item in the Philippines for it does not require utensils to eat and can be consumed on-the-go. There are several stuffing varieties to the Siopao that use pork, chicken, beef, shrimp, eggs, and possibly chopped scallions and water chestnuts.

Anyway, whenever they're together, the woman pinches the guy's cheeks whenever she gets a chance. For some reason, she absolutely loves to see them turn red or rosy. With her thumb and index finger, she would often grab a rather sizeable portion of his cheek and pinch it. But whenever she pinches it, she doesn't do it for only one or two seconds. No. The pinch is not complete until she has done several rapid left-to-right-and-back movements that sort of create a ripple effect on the rest of the poor man's face. According to the him, the "torture" could last for a pretty good amount of time.

However, in spite of all the pain, he continues to care for her deeply and doesn't really seem to mind the term of endearment she picked for him. After all, substance should always matter over form, right? Plus, it was a term reserved for their private moments and thus should be ok, right?

Well, not quite. There were a couple of instances a couple of weeks ago when the woman kind of "forgot" where the couple were.

First instance was one weekday morning when the man decided to pick the woman up after work. He called her at work and they decided to meet at a Starbucks near her office. A few minutes before their scheduled rendezvous, the man arrived at the Starbucks and, after smiling to greet the security guard that stood nearby, took his place in one of the five or six tables that were set up right outside the coffee shop.

So there he sat whiling away the time and watching the passersby when a few moments later, and in a voice that was clearly heard by everyone around them, the woman came out of her office building and called out to him, "Halika na, Siopao!" ("Let's go, Siopao!")

Upon hearing that, the man quickly lowered his head, picked up his stuff, stood up and quickly walked away with the woman. He never bothered to look back to see how the security guard and the rest of the coffee shop's patrons reacted to his girlfriend's call for he was certain that they must have been all laughing at him upon hearing his bun-inspired nickname.

The second instance took place two days later in close quarters: aboard a jeepney. After having a nice breakfast at Chow King, the couple decided to go to Kopiroti to grab a few of the store's famed roti bread. Since the store wasn't too far from where they were, they decided to take a jeepney.

The woman hailed a jeepney and once one pulled to a stop, she and the man proceeded to board it. As they got in, they noticed that there were only two seats available and each were across from the other.

The woman boarded first and picked the seat on the left. As she was about to sit, she turned to her boyfriend and once again, in a voice loud enough to be heard by everyone onboard, said, "Diyan ka na maupo, Siopao!" ("Take that seat right there, Siopao!") while pointing to the last empty seat across from her.

The man quickly took his seat and, in almost a repeat of what happened a couple of days earlier, spent most of the ride with his head bowed, steadfastly refusing to make eye contact with any of the other passengers. In the moments that he did look up, he made sure not to direct his gaze at any of the other passengers who were probably either smiling or laughing at him now that they had become aware of his nickname. Luckily for him, the jeepney ride was a short one.

The morale of the story is simply this. Coming up with your own terms of endearment is fine. Depending on what they are, be mindful of where and how you use them so as not to put yourselves in an embarrassing situation.

(Definitions and photo source: Wikipedia)