Chapter 1: The Art of the Middle Name
Prelude I am an alien of the terrestrial kind. In 2008, I landed on the United States of America to learn the ways of the Far West. Readers, note that this was not my first encounter with United States Ideology. I had been trained for this mission since before I was born: 200 years ago, 15,300 kilometers (sorry, 9,500 miles ) away, when my ancestors in Singapore were colonized by the British Empire. At the time, it was considered a Truly Great Honour to receive the teachings of the British Empire. The best and brightest of my ancestors ensured that English, the sacred tongue through which one accessed the ideas of the Empire, was passed down systematically from one generation to the next. Exhibit 1: My predecessors in Western attire of the 1960s, bidding goodbye to colonization. Naturally, I became a native speaker of English. But the Empire had long ceased to exist. In its place was its cool, rebellious offspring: the USA. Enthralled, I attempted to pr...