This is neat. You guys know my friend Karen, right? The one I knew from first year undergrad, the one who would always give me 1/2 an apple when I didn't have lunch. She gave me her old desk when I needed furniture in second year, with batman stickers on it and all. Her parents invited me out for dinner when I graduated, both times. Basically she is the kind of person that makes me believe that genuinely kind people exist, because why else would you befriend a weird foreigner who always take 1/2 of your apple at lunch.
There was this old couple that I met at Vancouver Airport on my way back from the interview. From the moment I heard them talk I knew they were M'sian. You can't go wrong with that M'sian Mandarin accent. We started chatting when they saw my passport. We sat together on the plane and they told me they graduated from NTU many years ago, before it was shut down. I mentioned a couple of my dad's friends who attended NTU and they knew all of them. We exchanged contact and said we would keep in touch.
I sent them an email earlier this week just to say hi. They emailed me back and invited me for dinner tonight. They told me they are meeting with another NTU graduate who will move to Vancouver soon. I thought it'd be cool to meet another fellow M'sian so I went. The last guest to arrive was someone from HK, they told me. Next thing I know, Karen's dad showed up at the door. Turns out they knew each other. They called Karen up and she came over for dinner as well. We laughed about it and later I found out the other NTU graduate was classmate with our high school head master. Apparently there used to be a whole bunch of them from NTU in Edmonton back then. Those were the times when chinese high school graduates would further their studies at NTU, but still ended up with a university education that wasn't recognized in S'pore or M'sia. So those who were able to go overseas, went. Karen's dad Taiwan university education wasn't recognized in HK, so he left too. Not unsimilar to those of us who left home after high school. I'm sure they had it harder than us back in those days tho. In a way it was almost weird that I related better to Karen's parents generation than Karen in terms of those experience. I now know why they all wanted to feed me. And I happen to be lucky enough to meet a very sweet kid back in my first days here. For that, I am eternally grateful.
I didn't get the job, but it sure ended up to be a very fruitful trip.
There was this old couple that I met at Vancouver Airport on my way back from the interview. From the moment I heard them talk I knew they were M'sian. You can't go wrong with that M'sian Mandarin accent. We started chatting when they saw my passport. We sat together on the plane and they told me they graduated from NTU many years ago, before it was shut down. I mentioned a couple of my dad's friends who attended NTU and they knew all of them. We exchanged contact and said we would keep in touch.
I sent them an email earlier this week just to say hi. They emailed me back and invited me for dinner tonight. They told me they are meeting with another NTU graduate who will move to Vancouver soon. I thought it'd be cool to meet another fellow M'sian so I went. The last guest to arrive was someone from HK, they told me. Next thing I know, Karen's dad showed up at the door. Turns out they knew each other. They called Karen up and she came over for dinner as well. We laughed about it and later I found out the other NTU graduate was classmate with our high school head master. Apparently there used to be a whole bunch of them from NTU in Edmonton back then. Those were the times when chinese high school graduates would further their studies at NTU, but still ended up with a university education that wasn't recognized in S'pore or M'sia. So those who were able to go overseas, went. Karen's dad Taiwan university education wasn't recognized in HK, so he left too. Not unsimilar to those of us who left home after high school. I'm sure they had it harder than us back in those days tho. In a way it was almost weird that I related better to Karen's parents generation than Karen in terms of those experience. I now know why they all wanted to feed me. And I happen to be lucky enough to meet a very sweet kid back in my first days here. For that, I am eternally grateful.
I didn't get the job, but it sure ended up to be a very fruitful trip.
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