The Snake heralded us into another year and we met for dinner for the first time this year on February 20 or the ninth day of the first month of the lunar calendar at the Chinese Recreation Club in Causeway Bay on Hong Kong Island. Participants included teachers, Mr and Mrs Chan, Mr and Mrs Siu (Ms Cheng) and Ms Chan Chun Kum. It was a weekday evening but those who live as far as in the western and the northern parts of the New Territories showed up. We cheered with jubilation to greet the New Year, wishing each other good health and happiness. Joy pervaded the room over good news: Cheung Wai Ha has been ‘sing le’, upgraded to a higher level of status in the family － Grandma and so is Clara very soon going to be. Everyone shared their honor and we also shared some practical information on keeping healthy. Adrian is always updated with information on not only physical exercises but some recipes for herbal tea. If you are interested, pop in the comment bubble and ask Adrian.

Life treats us in different ways that we cannot plan ahead though. “Cherish what you have and who you share your life with,” so you have heard a lot over the years. As life moves on, some of our fellow students have left us even without our knowing it in time. Hui Man On has left us in an accident, according to his sister who informed us of the sad news a year after his passing away. We tried by all means to reach our old fellows － or their families. At our age, we might have had experiences of losing our family members or even ‘the other half’ － the spouse. As we talked about how one of our classmates (who was not present at the dinner) expressed his feelings over the loss of his wife through writing poems and posting them on Facebook every day, Mrs Chan advised us to ‘pull him out of his own world’ to join our gathering and talk. True, we do not share only joy but sadness which is an inevitable part of life.

Remember a saying, “When joy is shared, it is doubled; when sorrow is shared, it is reduced by half.” So do get connected and share how you are doing with friends from the prime time of your life who do not tease your failure or envy your success. After all, ‘fail or succeed’ is only part of life. Friendship sustains us so we can develop on and on even in the ‘golden age’.