How our personal friendships evolve over time

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THERE are a number of popular sayings about long lasting friendships that I’d very much like to share with you today.

‘The best things in life are the people you love, the places you’ve been and the memories you’ve made along the way’.

‘Everyone has a friend during each stage of life. But only lucky ones have the same friend in all stages of life. There’s something about childhood friends that you can’t replace’.

‘The most beautiful discovery friends can make is that they can grow separately without growing apart. When you talk to an old friend, it’s like nothing has changed’.

Obviously with those of us who come from big families, our first friends were our own siblings other than our parents. Many of us were fortunate to also become friends with our close relatives, the cousins, uncles, aunties and in any Asian family, anyone else who’s related by marriage; by dialect, by religion and by race.

We start making our own friends in our playschool or kindergartens if we were fortunate to have gone there; otherwise, among the neighbours’ kids of our same age group who live in the same neighbourhood, ‘kampong’ (village) or community.

By the time we reach 7 or 8 and have started to get used to our primary school life, we’d have a small circle of good friends who were our classmates as well. Our circle would then slowly expand and increase to include friends of friends, and more like-minded relatives whom we mix socially during family events and outings.

Weddings, birthdays and funerals in big families tend to further cement such friendships among relatives both of the same age, younger as well as older.

Our character and our parents’ upbringing coupled with whatever bias, prejudices and preconceptions inculcated into our young impressionable brain and mindsets would have by our early teens made up our minds as to what we should look for in a friend and what good characteristics to find among potential friends.

In my early years in school, from age 6, I had already made a handful of friends from within my classroom – this same group with whom I had the good fortune to continue to study together in the same school (though not always in the same class or stream) and mature into our teens together, then into adulthood and eventually go on with our own careers and lives, right to this very day. These are my lifelong friends; not all of them reside in Kuching now, although I can safely say they number no less than a dozen kindred souls!

Besides those who are still here, some are now living in Pasadena (US), Taipei, Singapore, Melbourne, and other towns in Sarawak outside Kuching.

Some I haven’t seen for a great many years; others return for reunions now and then; and the ones still living in Kuching I would meet up with quite regularly.

During school time, we had a great many common interests – we’d be able to do things together, go on outings, join the Boys Scouts, or go bicycle riding to the upcountry towns during weekends and holidays. We would go in groups during the many festivals to visit other friends over Hari Raya, Chinese New Year, Christmas, and after 1964, Gawai Dayak.

During our years of raging hormone in our teens, we had collectively done things and gone through common ‘baptisms of fire’ – our first beers, our first dates, our first glimpse of that magazine which starts with ‘P’, the passing around of adult (or ‘yellow literature’, as it was known then) and later, on the onset of underground movies at private homes or in cinemas during special screenings!

Naughty stuff!

By the time we finished our Cambridge A Levels, each of us had gone our own way – many for further studies abroad; some to start working for public or private sectors; yet others to go into private business for their families or on their own. During the following years, we had tried to stay in touch, met occasionally at some social events, or made it a point to catch up on a regular basis informally for breakfast or a drink.

Of course, it was never the same ever again. We each had our own career to nurture, our own lives to lead and our differing interests over time hastened the breakaway.

Distance played a great part – all of us went our separate ways, and in those days before the Internet, before smartphones and instant communication, one could very easily disappear into thin air.

As a matter of fact, a couple of our classmates did exactly that! Up till today, we have not been able to track nor trace their whereabouts, Google Search notwithstanding – an international search among ex-classmates have also failed to locate their very existence!

Once we had started our adult working life, we make new friends from our circle of business contacts, through introductions, by way of clubs, societies and organisations that we join.

For those of us more religiously inclined, we meet them in churches, mosques, temples and places of worship; at events, social functions and formal seminars; others at societies such as Lions, Rotary, Toastmasters and yet others more into charitable organisations, the Red Crescent, St John’s Ambulance, SSPCA, Cheshire Home, Hun Nam Siang Tng, etc etc.

Friendships are easily made and deepened through many sporting events like tennis, squash and golf. Nowadays there are groups of bikers, hikers, marathon runners and other artistically-inclined organisations as well as arts, crafts, culture and the culinary arts.

So too are there many cliques in the social, family and country clubs – at the pool table, inside the swimming pool or gym and most of all, in the bars and karaoke pubs.

A common interest shared seems to be the most cohesive and lasting bond of friendship. Business interests and connections would follow closely behind.

As for myself, I belong to a number of groups of what I’d call ‘Friendship Groups or Circles’ and our only aim is to try and get as many of us together for a gathering, reunion, a ‘makan kechil’ or just for drinks – on an informal basis and at some regular interval, just to stay in touch.

We have been rather successful until the dreaded Covid-19 put a stop to it in March 2020.

Nevertheless, we hope to continue once we’re all back to normal – we pray to God that it’d be soon.

One of the groups is of former classmates – from Year 1967 when we were all in Form 5 at St Thomas’s Secondary School; on Facebook, we name it ‘Thomian 1967’, we have 143 active members (they include those up till Upper Form 6 of 1969).

Another is an alumni of former colleagues at Borneo Company and Sebor Sarawak – ‘Borneo-Sebor Alumni Group’ on Facebook, where we have 268 members from all over Sarawak, including past agency principals and family members. This is also a very active group.

Yet, another group is a family group called ‘Sarawak Ong Clan Association’ with 511 members belonging to the extended family and descendants of Ong Ewe Hai and Ong Tiang Swee – although strictly speaking restricted to family members including those related by marriages, we also welcome those interested in the family history.

All these three Facebook groups administered by me welcome any interested parties to join – just click ‘Join’ at the Group Page on Facebook.

The nature of friendship itself is that to be able to survive for a long time, to be able to be considered a lasting friendship, the irony is that it has to be ever-changing, like a chameleon, reflecting the times we live in.

Friendships are not static as our lives continue to evolve, to change; our own priorities, interests and our goals in life will change, modify and alter as we journey along on our paths to whichever glorious eventuality, sunset or ending – or indeed, a new beginning for the spiritually inclined!

We can only say thank you to our lifelong friends who are still with us today for having shared their warm and generous friendship and their life with us so far.

Stay blessed and thanks be to the Lord God Almighty for long lasting friendships everywhere!

Amen!