Pen-pal

Until I read from +sizekitten's post, I didn't realise that pen-pal still exists!

Years ago, when I was like 13, I started to have pen-pal. You know, there was one TV program where you were to write in with your address and they will give you one pen-pal located somewhere in this globe? I only remember something like Dear Pen-pal and the address was somewhere in Santa Barbara, CA, USA.

Well, I did write in and in the process, got myself three pen-pals, one from Zambia, Deborah Chiluba, one from Thessaloniki, Greece by the name of Karafilia Vasiliki and lastly, another one from Trinidad & Tobago, Michelle Marcano. It was very exciting for a village boy like me, to be able to write to someone so far away, totally in different time zone and different corner of the earth! For me to able to remember their name after so many years, it must account for something, right? I wonder why we stopped writing to each other? People moved on and don't bother to keep touch?

Then there was one pen-pal from United States by the name of Lam Thuy Chinh. I got to know this pen-pal from my God-sister who were studying in Canada at that time and she was boarding at the cousin's place. I started to write to her, after the address were given to me, around 13 and we stopped at around 18. The reason? She met with an accident during college outing with a group of friends and all of them didn't survive the accident. It's really sad, for a group of people so young, so full of life, to be taken away just like that. I remember how we used to write to each other, almost every week, where her letter to me normally will arrive every Monday and I will mail my reply that evening itself.

To imagine, someone who had seek asylum, escaped from the Viet Cong, braving the seas, got quarantined in an island for 1 - 2 years, got resettled to USA and just as life was going full speed, she have to meet her maker already. Life is such...

As we moved on in life, we didn't notice how snail mail is slowly fading to the background. Now, everyone is on email but there is something about snail mail that is hard to get from email. There is a sense of mystery in snail mail and it is more personal. The handwriting, the paper, the envelope, everything, showed personality. Email is more sterile, everything is more or less standardized.

I think everyone pass through this stage of life where you will have a pen-pal or two and you sort of share everything, a role more or less taken by instant messenger. Call me old world but I always love the feeling of paper in my hand, the smell of paper and ink and the excitement in opening an envelope. I miss those day. I should probably go and dig out those pen-pals' addresses and try to write them and pick up our friendship from where we have left off? Not with the USA one of course, though, she was the one that I were most close with, among all my pen-pals. Another life, perhaps?