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Bản tiếng Việt
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All thumbnails are enlargeable when clicked... I could never be the right-now me if I didn't have any friend in my life... Even I usually chose to live life the way I love to, but my friends did influence the style of my life... I learnt much from them than I think they could learn from me... To me, they are always my treasure: just a few but valuable... When my Mom re-married, she took my sister and me with her to a very wild land calls Long Dao, Long Khanh... For the whole year of my 3rd grade, we didn't go to school at all... She tried her best to teach us at home without enough materials... In the summer 1982, my aunt's husband took us back to Saigon City in the purpose of getting us educated... Thanks for their best support, we were then able to improve our knowledge... For the whole summer, we had to learn real hard to to catch up to the level we were supposed to be, to cover the whole year long we lost... Thank God, my aunt is a teacher in elementary school... Starting from September of 1982 until the last day I lived in Vietnam, Saigon is where I considered my hometown... Saigon is where I had all the friends and all the fun... My cousin, who is 2 years younger than me, was my very first best friend in Saigon and in my life... His name is Nghia Gia Nguyen...
In those years of elementary and middle school, there were a couple friends in my class I considered my close friends... But thru the years until now, the only one I still miss and hope to get in touch back is Tuan Minh Tran, nicknamed Keo... His house is across from Bui Thi Xuan High School... Last time we talked, he was in Australia getting university degree... In my mind, he is a short guy with a good built body since he is very into sport... The thing that I admired so much about him is his characteristics... He's a friend with the real meaning of this word... He's a friend you can count on when you needed...
In these middle school, I also got a few life friends, who I knew out of school... Some of them I knew in my martial art school where I learn Chinese Shaolin Kungfu... Especially in those is Thinh Hung La, nicknamed A Tieu... We enrolled in the martial art school at the same time, we ended up with him being my instructor... Fighting beside him is a battle I always had confident in... I was (and may be still) a furious type of guy, that got us into a lot of fighting with other gangs... I learnt from those battle about the special moves of the other Kungfu Style such as Aikido, Karate, Vovinam, etc. a lot, simply because most of the times those "special moves" got right into my face or my body, spreaded my blood around... With his backup, I always got home alive (not in one piece, but alive)... There was a time, he took a knife in his back just to cover me... Six years older than me, the guy already had his motorcycle workshop at the time I knew him... He was the one gave me money to spend in my middle school time... Last time we were in contact was in 1998 when I went back to visit my close ones in Vietnam... I admired him of his calm mood that he can keep all the time even in a serious fight... I admired his knowledge about the motorcycle engine and his ability to be his own boss with his own business... Some of my friends (and girlfriends) came from my improving classes I took outside my attending school... That time, I took a English Translate Class... In this class, one became my girlfriends and one became my close friend up until he moved to France with his family in 1988... His name is Thien Chi Bui... The guy was amazing in cartoon style drawing that I admired so much... Then I moved into high school... Bui Thi Xuan was considered a school of "rich" students, just as Le Hong Phong was a school of "talent" students... It's a surprise to see a poor guy like me schooling there... Those years was the great ones, when I knew the best three friends of my life and some close friends; I also knew the most special one in those years... My three best friends and me made up a group of four... To be fair, we listed each person in order of our birthday, the first born guy is the first in the list... What makes every single each of them special is the distinct personality each of them have... No one of us share all the same characteristics, but all of us share each other's up and down... My family think of them as my brothers, their families think the same about me... The first is Vinh Quoc Ngo, born March 17th, 1973... He was a little spoiled being a son in a rich family... That created his characteristic of wanting to be the leader and winner in all situation... Thank God that he changed a lot to become a very knowledgable guy who knows the clause "there's sky outside sky"... I admired his knowledge he got from books and life... Lately from the time he change his whole life by going with the photography career, that knowledge of his just got filled up more and more... That gave him the ability to make interesting in all his talkings and stories... Life taught him well so that day and day he can become a person who lives not just for himself but for the others... For both two times I've been back visiting Vietnam, his house was where I stay and being taken care of...
The second is Giang Xuan Nguyen, born July 19th, 1973... His family came from North Vietnam, so he speak with a different accent than Southern us... At first, I didn't like the guy at all for all of his "legends" he told my other friend in class about his "North"... But, since when I didn't know, we becamse best friends... His weakness but also the greatness is his straightforward mind... He may not know how to make something pretty or romantic, but he sure know how to make things the right way "by the book"... In my own words, he is kind of guy that simply live with the motto "being happy is not necessary being number one, but being one of the good ones"... His house were where I stay most of the time in my last year of high school... Married in September 2002, they just had their first child in June 2003...
Giang Nguyen's wedding (his wife name is Doanh) - with me & Vinh Ngo The third guy in the "four" was Vinh Hoang Nguyen (1973-1994), born August 19th, 1973, nicknamed Hien... Another short, good build guy in my mind... He and me could read each another's mind without saying things... I used to say that he must be my brother in the previous life, but we were fighting each another a lot... So, God made us friends in this life with a bond closer than family... Live all for others, he is the most amazed guy I met in my life... His sensitive heart goes together with a strong rightous mind created someone to fulfill the meaning of "human being"... With him beside me, I feel confident in every social situation... His Grandmom's house in Binh Duong, Song Be is the place filled up with too many nice memories we all shared with him or without him... He moved to Australia in 1991, that was the last time I've seen him... Then about one week in December 1993 after my family left Vietnam to move to the United States, he came back to Vietnam... He passed away in a traffic accidence in 1994, left every single one of his close ones a emptiness that could never be replaced... The fourth and last in this group, of course, is me...
Beside those, ThanhNha Nhut Diep, Binh Phuoc Nguyen, Phong Cong Le, Huong Chi Nguyen were some of my close friends I knew and still trying to keep in touch... Coming to the United States, I didn't make too many friends more... As a part time college students, I didn't spend enough time at school to have friends... At work, years ago I had three guys that I can call them my friends... Then one of them got laid off from the company, the other two moved to different working shift than mine... And after two of them got married, we just didn't have time to hang around together anymore... Even though I am trying to keep in touch with them the best I can, the bond couldn't be strong as friends I had in high school when we had chance to share many memories... One of my friends in the US is Thinh Duc Tran, born August 14th, 1973... He's a technician working at my workplace... We went to the same college, once took the same class of tennis beginning... He's working on a web site for his high school class when he was still in Vietnam... So, we contact each other often so that I can help him about computer matter the most I can do with my little knowledge in this field to improve his site to professional look than the starting site he put up at the beginning... The other one is Ryan Tuan Nguyen, nickname Tommy, a cool friend who treats friends with righteousness...
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