I have had various nicknames from my university mates and one which followed me from my degree till I completed my masters was Kiasu. It's a Hokkien word which means "fear for losing." One country which you can associate kiasuness with is Singapore and that is the reason, despite everyone telling me to try to apply for jobs in Singapore, I am avoiding it like a plague.
From school, right till I completed my degree, every single time when an exam was over, the norm was to start comparing answers with friends (although, we kind of stopped doing this as we grew older) then asking how everyone fared. I always felt I did badly, not because I actually did so bad that I could fail, but because I could have done better and scored higher. My kiasuness reached its peak when I was doing my masters. I did not even realise the impression I was giving to my close friends till I was just outside the graduation hall collecting my graduation gown when I bumped into my friend who flew in from Jamaica for our big day:
Me: Hey, R, how are you?
R: Good. How are you?
Me: Good too. How did you graduate?
R: I got a distinction. What about you?
Me: *grinning from ear to ear* I got a distinction too! Yaay!
R: Aww.. and you were always complaining you were going to fail the course.
It's safe to say that I will start keeping my kiasuness at bay from now.
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