I was the shortest guy in my class in Secondary One. It didn’t help my self-esteem that the way we were lined up as a class was from the shortest girl to the tallest girl and then right behind the tallest girl was the shortest to the tallest guy. So I found myself standing right behind Liling, the tallest girl in my class.

Being short and not exactly good-looking, I had a view of myself that I always needed to work very hard to get noticed. I was always jealous of Jiaqiang and Youshun who somehow seemed to have this aura of high potential. Seniors and teachers took one glance at them and decided that both of them were gonna be future leaders.

Like every human being, my survival instinct kicked in and I decided I needed to charm others in a different way. To get attention, I began really good at cracking jokes and making smart-Alec remarks.

I wound up being witty.