Friends are forever...

Since early this year, I have been fortunate enough to re-discover by way of Facebook, many old friends whom I knew during my boarding school days in Kuantan. Although I only spent two years there, the bond of kinship that was forged with my schoolmates are very strong... strong enough to span a duration of 31 years and for some, a distance across continents.

The re-connection in FB led to reunions or mini-gatherings so that we could meet again in real-life. For the past three months including this one, I manage to attend three such events, starting with a dinner in KL in March where 8 guys from the '79 batch turned up. This was followed with an afternoon tea session in JB in April where 9 persons (including 2 ladies) were present. The third mini-gathering was done early this month, and it had the largest turnout so far. The event was held at Beriyani Selatan House, a restaurant at Section 19 Shah Alam owned by fellow K79 friend Syed Idrus. Twenty-three of my MRSM Kuantan batchmates were there and it was certainly a fun and memorable evening.

The three occasions prompted me to write a note or article in FB as a way to record snippets of information about all the friends whom I have re-discovered. I do not wish to repeat the note in this post but re-reading it again just now reminded me of another Kuantan schoolmate whom I've written about in this blog, not once but twice. I re-connected with this friend in FB in early February, or rather she re-discovered me. Her name is Norhayati Shaharuddin.

The two earlier posts in which I mentioned about Yati were published in October 2008 and August 2009. The stories can be read here -> A rose by any other name and We've got talent.

In each of those stories, there were unanswered questions which I had hope to ask my friend should I ever get the chance to meet her again. By the grace of the Almighty, on 11th February an add-friend request came in my FB inbox, from who else but the girl from Gopeng herself. I have since invited Yati to read the two blog posts, primarily to know if she has any objections to my writing about her, and secondly to seek the answers to my queries. She has gracefully replied and I now reproduce both the questions and the relevant answers for the benefit of readers.

In the first post about nicknames, I mentioned that Yati was also known as Hai Hong (the name of the Vietnamese refugee ship that landed on our east coast shore in 1978), but I didn't know how she got it. She told me that the name was teasingly given by one of our Maths teachers, in reference to her fair skin and oriental looks. Apparently the teacher had mentioned that Yati's relatives had just landed on the beach.

In the second post, I wrote about our stage performance in a musical drama where Yati and I played the lead roles. I sang an old Malay 60's song which was then reciprocated by her... but I could not remember the song she sang. She told me that she sang `Mustika Hatiku'.

Thank you Yati for the explanations. The two stories are now complete.

And now, if only I can get to meet you and a few of the other girls for tea... that would surely be wonderful. Tapi kita fahamlah, wanita yang dah berkeluarga ni memang rumit sikit nak dapat kebenaran berjumpa dengan kawan lama.

Anyway, it's lovely to be in touch again... and thanks too, for the memories.

Group photo of the K79 mini-gathering early this month. We are already planning for another one next month.