One day, Curry Boy shared this quote to me,
Everywhere means nowhere. When a person spends all his time in foreign travel, he ends by having many acquaintances, but no friends.
Lucius Annaeus Seneca
Do you agree?
There are different types of friends. According to my 6-year-old niece, Hailey, she says a best friend is not a true friend, and the real best one is called bestie.
In case I am dragged from the latest slang or trend or whatever, I googled ‘bestie vs best friend’. It looks like bestie and best friend are the same thing. But bestie translated into Chinese would be 閏蜜, and best friend is 最好的朋友. The answer became clear – you would share everything with your bestie, but not the best friend.
Then I asked myself, who is my bestie? And who is my best friend? I couldn’t answer. To me, at this stage, there is no label and category on my friends. I just call them friends. If I know a certain topic is good to share with some friends, then I go to them, while I go to some other friends to do different activities. But mostly, I go with feeling, and realise that feelings can change throughout our lives.
On this one-week short trip, I only met my friends for one and a half days as I spent the rest with my family.
Before one friends’ gathering, Curry Boy once asked me, ‘what are your friends’ names?’ In a second, all of the Chinese names popped into my mind, they almost spilled out of my mouth, but they stopped in the air. It’s too unfamiliar to him, just like I’ll never be able to remember those complicated South-Indian names. So I gave up, ‘maybe you can ask them!’
On the night they finally met, my secondary school / university friends introduced themselves by an English name. I found it too funny to call them by names which I hardly knew – Eric, Anna, Jasmine and Milly. Who are these people? These are the people who were willing to squeeze time from their busy working and family life, prepare a delicious and overflowing hot-pot filled with astonishing ingredients, and the kind of Hong-Kong-style laughter that I haven’t had in a few years. Again, Eric, Anna, Jasmine and Milly, thank you.
While on the other hand, I have some friends whom I have actually almost forgotten their Chinese names, since I always only call their English names. I even forgot how we got along, nor how we became friends. However, the-Chinese-name-which-I-forgot friend, Joanne, planned a half-day trip to the back garden of Hong Kong, Sai Kung. She and her boyfriend, Billy, made every effort to reassure us were comfortable, and also spoiled us by savouring a range of Hong Kong traditional sweets and snacks, like a whole box of rarely-find deliciously made egg-rolls. How can I be so lucky to have you, Joanne?
And Stephanie, my another friend, even if it’s just lunch time we could meet, I’m always truly grateful that you are willing to spend time with me, and I’ll never forget the QR code order placing slip is not required to pay the bill! Arigatou!
Now, at the time of writing this post, I remember some of my friends in Hong Kong whom I didn’t have enough time to meet. And some of my friends residing in Japan, Switzerland, Germany, and the US, whom I can hardly visit since they are so far far away. But most of them are my friends, not acquaintances. One day, we’ll meet, somewhere. 🙂
