Precious Ties going going...

When I was staying with my parents, I had to endure many hours of story-telling by my parents.... yep, that's how I know the names of all their friends...

What strikes me most is not the exhaustive list of friends names and how they have spent time together, its the relationship that my parents have with not only their friends, but also their friends' family as well.

That bit of "relationship" (亲情) is hard to explain in english, the ties that my parents used to have with their friends' family is amazing, it feels like they become an extended part of the family also. When it comes to festivals etc, they would exchange phonecalls, gifts, bringing smiles and warms the heart. Such gestures cannot be replaced by money or time.

Today, I asked myself, how many of my friend's parents or family do I actually meet or keep in touch with? Barely a handful. However, what I noticed in this handful is that, we have a closer friendship, one that spans across just one generation, bringing higher awareness and understanding in our friendship. You see, if you friend becomes cranky one day, you may not know why, but if their parents start showing some signs of stress or shares their situations with you, you can clearly understand why your friend is so cranky and you can better comfort your friend. :)

Perhaps having a deeper relationship with a friend's parents sounds a little absurd in today's world as the personal relationship between two seems to be distant by many distractions.

What about some of those friends who has physically left the country for one reason or the other? What are you doing to keep those friendships alive? Are there moments that you think of these friends but never got to tell them about it? Go call your friend and tell them about it now!

We had a pair of friends who stayed in Europe for a few years and they called us frequently whenever they wanted to speak to someone with a familiar "accent" (ha ha, it should be called singlish or slang perhaps?). Because of our time difference, we often got calls in the early morning or late nights, sometimes, due to our own tiredness, we want to yell "#$%#$@#" over the phone as we pick it up, but with that familiar voice over the other side, with that warm "hello, we are thinking of you, so we called you," all the tiredness melts away and turn that few mins into a real-time talk cock session, bringing the distance to a zero.

These phone calls made me realised that those who left our country for whatever reasons, do most certainly miss home. And whatever they can lay their hands on something from home would be treated like a treasure. So do send your overseas friends some gifts from home from time to time. You will be giving them that extra boast!

Have a lovely new year my friends!