I was having dinner with my family at Tekka Sheng Siong. ( don’t ask me why I’m there, I’m just tagging along with my family as we’re on a shopping spree to mark the start of GSS) The table next to us was 3 Ah-nei. I was sitting alone when my family was away ordering food. That was when I learnt true friendship – the Ah-nei way.
2 of them walked away and only 1 man was sitting by the table, he took out a small cake and lighted 3 candles, another man came back with 3 bottles of icy cold Carls-bird, then the birthday man came back, and both his friends stood up and sang him a birthday song, they did not care about how others see them, they were just happy celebrating a birthday for his friend, they were totally oblivious to what was happening around them. The birthday Ah-nei cut the cake and used his bare hands to pick up the creamy cake and put it into his mouth…… Oh, they didn’t bother to get a fork to eat; he then cut another piece for both his friends, serving the cake to his friends with his bare hands. Yucks, so unhygienic, I thought to myself. Just as one of his friends received that piece of cake, he took a bite and again, using his bare hands, he fed it to the birthday Ah-Nei which he shyly but gladly took it. This scene was really heartwarming that it really melt my heart. Then the birthday man took out a photo from his shirt pocket and showed it to his friends who were then pouring his a glass or rather a mug of red wine. I didn’t bother who was in the photo but I saw that there was a yellow price tag on the bottle of red wine which I figured that they buy from elsewhere. Just then, as the man was sliding the photo back into his pocket, I saw that it was a portrait photo of an Indian lady in orange sari. That must be his lady or girlfriend, that’s my thought. We had our dinner and they drank their red wine and Carls-bird and make merry throughout the whole night.
I believed that’s true friendship to the 3 Ah-nei. It would be very sad and lonely to celebrate one’s birthday in a foreign land, but together with a bosom friend, the birth-day will be lighted with sparkles and true friendship.