That Summer Twenty Years Ago

Twenty years ago today, I started my Summer job at Baker & Mckenzie in Hong Kong. It was the last Summer break with my best friend. He would soon be leaving for the U.S. to pursuit his studies. Two years later, I came to the U.S. We exchanged telephone calls twice and promised that we should get together soon, and then we lost touch with each other. He was busy with his life and I was with mine.

It was the same Summer that M and I broke up. She was at another college with a different career goal and objective in life. I was trying hard to get through college and hoped my visa would come through soon. That Summer was the last time we were together. We no longer had common interests to talk about and we parted, and then I was in agony. For a long time, I still thought of her often, but I never saw her again.

Without my parents and without my close firends, I was almost alone in Hong Kong. Uncle Number Five would come to check on me every weekend. We would go to visit Uncle and Aunty Number Seven on Sundays and had dinner with them. They were always kind to me. I missed Aunty Number Seven's pig lungs soup. It requires hours of cleaning up the pig lungs and then hours of cooking. It took a whole day to cook it, but it's delicious. I have not had pig lungs soup for 18 years already.