*Updated on 12 Feb 2011 with pics after we got back..
Sorry no pictures for the next few posts until we get back to HK… The servers were moved to China, which is why this site takes so long to access from Malaysia – also why it’s really difficult to upload pics from Penang or Seremban…
New Year, Old Friends
I haven’t met K in maybe a decade. She’s one of my friends from secondary school – except we didn’t attend the same school. Her very well-behaved almost-6 year old wants Mc Donald’s for a mid-day snack. Rockstar is camped out at Coffee Bean in Queensbay Mall (they have toy cars to drive just upstairs!) asleep on my parents’ laps while Kings and I organize catch-ups with Penang friends nearby.
When my family moved from Sandakan to Penang (I was born in PJ), I was expected to start all over again in a martial art my school did offer, otherwise it would simply not be a recognized activity on my school leaving cert. I’d spent the last 3 years in belt gradings, I didn’t want to start over. K’s school had the nearest training center. If there was such a thing back then (seems nothing, compared to what HK can be like today), I guess my own school was probably a more “desirable” school in terms of academic performance.
I loved training at K’s school. They had a taekwondo club, and for months I trained there (among other centers – I trained at least 5 days a week) using all their club facilities. K joined later – she was a sprinter on the track and field team who wanted to learn a little self defense on the side.
I wished she went to my school. Then I wished she were part of my life in Singapore. By the time I followed Kings to Hong Kong I was resigned that we would hang in different circles. But my girl friends from my new life would have loved her. Fair, with wide, lighter-brown eyes and long wavy hair, so would my male friends. Once, I planned for one of my college mates to strike up a long distance relationship with her (didn’t work out, we quickly realized she’d just started seeing someone).
In another life, she would have kicked butt in Hong Kong – when we met in our teens, her father had walked out on the family. She would accept assistance from none of us. She helped her mum get by, including taking care of an aunt with special needs, until one day she had extra school expenses. Then she picked up the phone and told her father he at least owed it to her to get them through that one patch. He did.
From my sheltered world of extra
