During my second year of uni in London, I shared a flat with two very wonderful ladies. One, a Malaysian girl named Gene who was studying law at Queen Mary University and another, a british born Chinese girl named Julia who was in the same course as I was at UCL: Economics.
Julia is a pretty interesting person. Her family is from Hong Kong but she was born and raised in the UK. So she speaks English with the strongest English accent possible but when she speaks Cantonese, she sounds as if she grew up in Hong Kong.
Well this week, she made a short trip to KL just to pay me a visit.
The last time I saw her was two years ago at graduation and I didn’t think I’d see her again so soon. We spent a lot of time catching up on what we’ve both been up to (she’s now in reinsurance) and also on what our other uni friends have been up to.
You know things like… is bla bla still together with bla bla… or what is Sheila from UCL doing now… etc etc. Most of my old uni friends seem to be doing quite well career wise, although some of them who were working in the financial sector in London got laid off recently due to the economic crisis.
While she was down I took some time off to take her shopping at Pasar Malams, Sungai Wang, Sunway Pyramid and also to try some local food. We even made a trip all the way to Klang to have the famous Klang Bak Kut Teh.
I was expecting a response like
“WHY THE HELL DO YOU GUYS PUT PORK IN YOUR TEA?!?!”
But it turned out that she actually liked it!
Ended up taking pictures of it too… and she’s not even a blogger.
Here’s something interesting.
While I was in London, I spent a lot of my time with my friends from the UK, Hong Kong or other countries. All of them always felt that my Malaysian accent sounded weird to them and Julia used to poke a little harmless fun at me here and there.
But these few days while she was here she realized that everyone here spoke English like me… and I never thought I’d get to say this in my lifetime but.. . Julia… now you’re the one that speaks funny 🙂
We took some time off our busying around KL to pay a visit to our 3rd flatmate, a nice girl named Gene who has now become a lawyer at one of the top law firms in the country pulling in big bucks.
The three of us caught a picture, a picture that we all agreed will be the last in a long time to come until one of us gets married.
I sent Julia off yesterday after her short trip… we said our goodbyes, hugged and at the end of it all, I think she’s glad she came over.
Bye Julia!
You will be missed!
Timothy Tiah – Co-Founder of Colony, Kuala Lumpur Co-Working Space