...but whenever I do, I make sure I say it with a smile, at the very least. Last week I said goodbye to a dear friend. Her name is Jianya Tang... yep, she's Chinese. She went back home to China for good.
We were classmates in De La Salle University - Dasmariñas and we were inseparable esp. during our early freshman years. The story is quite awkward. It's our first day and she's standing in front of our classroom looking at the classroom number and her student form back and forth for like 3 minutes, straight! It's like she wants to assure herself every second that she is in the right classroom. It was my first time in my entire life to approach a girl and straightforwardly ask: "Hi! We are classmates. Can we be friends?" We shook hands and she said: "Of course!" I can't remove the smile on my face that day.
7 years after... I can't believe I'll be saying the opposite. Actually, I didn't... because I don't think I can handle it. She invited me and 2 of our other classmates for videoke and food, we all know that she'll be leaving in 3 days and it will be her last moment with us, so it was a night of endless photo shoot and laughter! Until I sang this:
"Oh, that was a nice song. Thank you very much." Sometimes being emo helps me in converting my feelings into words and so as not to break the spree, I asked my other classmate to sing "Peng You", a Chinese song about friendship. My classmate sang Kim Chu's version which has Filipino lyrics but Jianya sang with her in Mandarin which made the song a beautiful duet.
And just like in movies, flashbacks occurred to me: We eat most of the time together for lunch (she likes sisig and pinakbet); we review together in a "kubo" (kubos are everywhere in La Salle, they're like benches in a park), we laugh at each other, literally. She thinks I'm a dog... =_= then she'll say "Don't worry, you are the cutest dog!" Then she'll laugh with a bucket load of sarcasm; I taught her and her Chinese friends "Pandanggo sa Ilaw" because they need to present a Philippine traditional dance; I sometimes go with her when she does her grocery shopping and we always stop and debate over fresh produce, I developed that invulnerability to peoples' stare every time we talk oh so loud on the street in English; when we laugh, we laugh out loud, it's like the end of the world; I pretend that I am Thai every time we eat in an authentic Vietnamese, Chinese or Japanese resto (and the waiters really do think I'm Thai! XD )...
Haha, if I go on, this blog post would probably never end. In other words, we had no dull moments. It's like we knew each other since we were babies and cultural and language barriers don't exist between the two of us. She is really a one of a kind friend.
So after that videoke night, she called a cab for us... I was about to go inside but then I turned around looked at her for the last time and said: "Ah! I hate goodbyes. Just take care of yourself." We both know it will be an emotional moment so we didn't say much.I'm sure that she enjoyed her 7 year stay here in the Philippines just as much as I enjoyed her company. I am also confident that after 50 years she will tell stories to her grandchildren about how much she missed this cute dog she met in the Philippines.
I tried not to cry but I'm such an emo! Goodbye "Pinky"... till we meet again... I'm sure we will... somehow.
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