Anyway, back then, I was the only Malaysian participant in that course and one of the youngest in the class. Out of the 17 or so participants, I was rather close to two – Khamla from Laos and Odgerel from Mongolia. Since I was the only female in class and a foreigner with almost no knowledge of Nihongo apart from saying greetings, either Odgerel or Khamla or both would always accompany me wherever I went to. They would do such things as carrying heavy bags for me, securing a seat for me when we traveled by train and basically acted like my bodyguard of some sort wherever else we went to.
Odgerel, Khamla and I, Akihabara, 2002
I have kept in touch with both of them – we have kept tabs on each other every now and then. Khamla had visited Malaysia twice since our first meeting and I had visited him and his family in Vientiane once in 2004. While I’ve yet to visit Ulaanbaatar, I’ve kept in touch with Odgerel via email and instant messenger. He won a scholarship by World Bank to do his Masters in Yokohama in 2003, brought his family to Japan six months later and just went back to Mongolia in April 2005.
Khamla and I, Laos Presidential Palace, Vientiane, 2004
He got promoted upon his return to Ulaanbaatar, and this year, he was asked to give a presentation in Shinjuku on Mongolia ICT development. Since Shinjuku is not that far from Waseda, we agreed to meet a day after he arrived in Japan.
Odgerel and I, Tenya, Takadanobaba, 2006
We had dinner together at Tenya – which he insisted on paying and reminded me of the old good time when he was acting as my bodyguard of some sort. It was good to see him again and I got to see latest photos of his son, his wife (who he claimed to be better in Nihongo than he is because she picked up on Nihongo while working part-time while he was too lazy to take any Nihongo class) and some snapshots of Ulaanbaatar.
It would be great if we could have a reunion of some sort – Khamla, Odgerel and I – in Japan. Sometimes, it just felt good to meet up and do some catching up with friends, despite not knowing each other all that well. We just clicked with each other – and the friendship has lasted all these years although we seldom talk or email each other. Yet, whenever we meet, it doesn’t feel awkward, as if we have just last met about a few weeks ago, instead of years ago.
Meeting Odgerel again somehow made me miss a few old male friends, who had been kind to and left lots of pleasant memories for me. There’s Sidan, who’s currently being assigned in Prague. There’s Syah, who’s somewhere in the Middle East. And there’s Fadzli, who I’ve lost touch with since 2000.
The truth is, I’ve tried to track him down via Google, but to no avail. In fact, I posted my wedding invitation card to his old address (his mother’s house). I even wrote hubby’s address (because we used different cards for my family’s and hubby’s receptions) just to give him a choice whether to attend the one held in Seremban. I did not see him though.
Fadzli was the one who introduced Jeffrey Archer to me in 1990. Since then we had discussed and traded lots of books with each other. In fact he once called me all the way from Newark, Delaware, just to let me know that he was reading the then newly released “The Fourth Estate”. When I saw “False Impression”, the latest book by Jeffrey Archer, I immediately thought of Fadzli, wondering whether he has gotten hold of this book, whether he still read a lot now, whether or not he has children to whom he can read to, how is he faring right now and so on and so forth.
Well, in case anybody knows a particular Ahmad Fadzli Sharip, who graduated from Delaware University, alumnus of Sekolah Tunku Ampuan Durah (SPM batch 1992), married in 1999, used to live in Taman Paroi Jaya and then moved to Melaka (and I don’t know where else) – will you please let him know that he's being missed by an old friend?
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