Manho
Manho is my best friend in the arts class of Saint Francis Xavier's School. We started to be good friends in form five because we sat close to each other. If I still recall things correctly, he should sit in front of me.
Our days in form four and five were relaxing although a series of intensive tests and exam took place in the form five year. The form master was strict to our conduct and school results. The first thing I knew about Manho was from a conversation between him and the form master. We were sitting quietly in class in a morning of September 1994. Suddenly, we saw a shadow was walking into our room. It was Manho, he was late. The practice of of school was that late students should write the reason of being late on his handbook. Then, form master and parents had to sign it. Such thing happened so often on Manho that no one would pay attention on his punctuality anymore. One day, he asked the form master for signature. Guess what the master said? "You are late again? Too much! I have never seen any students being late 12 days of a month!" We were shcocked at first, then laughed.
Our class could be very united in response to teacher. In form four (grade 10), a "Chi Kung" (hey Cantonese friends, watch out! Chi Kung here does not mean uterus. It is a type of Chinese martial arts) expert taught us Chinese Lauguage. He did not give anyone good impression because every teacher and student knew he was an extremely horny old man. He could bring students to watch porno films gallery in cinema and gave an excuse that he wanted to compare pornos of different decades. Anyway, we were "lucky" enough to have him as our Chinese teacher. His class was ok except a bit boring. One of his favourite skills was to perform chi kung in class. We did not want to see this as we were under time constraint. Also, all materials from grade 10 and 11 would be examined in the HKCEE. Eventually, someone came up with writting a letter of complain to the principal. Most classmates signed the letter. There was no exception for me and Manho. The teacher knew that at the beginning of the second term and denied all accuses. He did not go further and we assumed everything was settled. But he made a 180c change of his temper few weeks before the end of term. He became very mean to students. He even went to my desk and asked about that letter. I was annoyed and I said some "official" things to make him give up. Next year, we got the news that he could not teach HKCEE classes anymore. I guess that was why he was so mean to us those days.
We started to talk more in form five. Of course, we talked on phone pretty often. We worked towards the same goal: to study form six in SFXS. However, things went out of track. He needed to leave after form five. It was pretty sad as a friend's leaving seemed losing a part of my everyday life. Although we could still call each other, the feeling would be entirely different. We kept in touch thou. Few days before leaving for Canada, I called him out and had dinner in a fish and chips restaurant in Wan Chai.
We could only talk to each other on icq or long distance call. A year later, he went to New Zealand for school. Basically, we had no chance to meet because our summer is their winter. We could only meet if he visit me in Canada or I visit him in NZ. However, he went to Sydney in 2000 for university. He went Hong Kong for a 3 weeks long term break late June and early July. I was working on summer job around that time so that we could meet. Counting with my fingers, we had not met for 4 years! We hung around and had lots of fun. I visited Sydney in late August. He hosted me in his place. I really appreciated him because he needed to write exam that week. He showed me some parts of Sydney. We had meals together. We chatted before falling into sleep.
This summer we met in Hong Kong again. Although we could only meet for an afternoon, we did enjoy and value every minute spent together.