SINGAPORE - Joshua Teo was teased and made fun of as a boy.
The other kids would call him alien and Shrek - after the fictional ogre character - and young Joshua would get hurt and upset.
Once, a primary school classmate asked him if his ears looked the way they did because of a car accident. He quietly said no.
The 18-year-old Raffles Institution (RI) graduate has microtia, a birth defect that causes the external part of both ears to be underdeveloped and deformed.
The condition also meant that his hearing was affected and could register only about 40 per cent of all sounds.