Mkay, so I'm finally getting around to doing poor Hongee's section. I tell ya, if she was over here in ol' Virginny she probably would have kicked my butt by now for taking so long. At least that what she says to me in her emails. ;) Oh, I also wanted to note before you read any further that I just received some really nice pictures from her the other day but I'm unable to scan them to put them up here because my dang scanner isn't working for some strange reason. Therefore, you're stuck looking at outdated pics from 1997 & 1999 until I can figure out why my scanner is malfuntioning. Sorry, babe.

Well, I suppose I should tell you, the reader, (who are you?) how I met Hong, what she's like, yada yada yada.... It's probably best I follow the formula I've used for Lynn, Anna & Jenn to keep everything consistent. Hongee is a different kind of person in her special kind of way (not Special Ed). She's one of those people where it's hard to put a finger on what mood she's in at a given moment, what she's thinking or what she means. There were sometimes where I would finish a conversation with her and walk away shaking my head, either in frustration, amusement or disbelief. And I don't mean that in a bad way. I truly have not met anybody quite like her. Hongee is an incredibly intelligent and talented young woman who has a tendency to use really big words that I, the dummkopf of the group, would be teased mercilessly for using. For example, when she had to ride home with a guy we used to work with named Jayson she told me the next day about all the "obscenities" (note: not cuss words, swear words, etc.) he used while driving, carefully enunciating each syllable of the word "obscenities." Of course I told him, who thought it was pretty damn funny because that's the kind of guy Jay was. As a joke/going-away present for college, I bought her these little magnets I found at a Borders Books & Music near my old house that had advanced English words printed on them in small type. You've probably seen those magnets before, where on each little square is a word and you put them together on your refrigerator or wherever in different orders to form sentences. There's also this cute little thing Hong does whenever she gets chilly or gets excited. She stands up real straight and brings her limbs in close to her body, balls her fists up, shakes like she's shivering and goes "oooooOOOOoooooo." She always made me giggle whenever she did that.

I met Hong the first day of sophomore year at my new high school, Mount Carmel. I had just moved to northern San Diego from South Carolina and knew absolutely nobody except my schmuck of a neighbor, Travis. It was the first period of the day for Mr Jamison's World History class and right away he had us form into groups of four for a project. I'm just thinking "Oh, crap" as I watch everybody form groups with their friends when a pretty Chinese girl sitting next to me says, "Hey, wanna be in a group with me?" Of course I said "yes" and we found two other losers like ourselves (just kidding, Hongee) to be in the group. I can't exactly remember what the assignment was supposed to be about (national debt or something) but she and I ended up doing everything because the two other girls did turn out to be slackers. And like I've said before I met two of my other Sisters, Lynn and Anna thru Hongee at school the next day. See, my first day of school didn't turn out all that bad! But after that semester we never did have any other classes together.

Hongee and I never did tons of things together mainly because I lived on the other side of town and partially because she kept to her studies while I, the slacker of the group, did whatever homework the teachers assigned (sometimes not even that) and watched tv or read. Suppose that's why I graduated with a not-so-hot GPA, but that's my own fault and I'm still kicking myself over that. Note to any high schoolers who might be reading this: STUDY!!! But anyway, thanks to our mothers who would occasionally cart around our no-driver's-license heineys until I finally got my own car Junior year (piece of sh*t; don't get me started), we were sometimes able to go to each other's houses, the movies (Freddy's Dead! Dumb & Dumber with Anna) or the good ol' PQ library. Then the summer before Senior year started she persuaded me to apply at a retirement home where she had just got a job working in the dining room for the Assisted Living department. Let me tell you, that's one hell of a place to get started in the work force. On the most hand the residents were sweet old people with illnesses who just wanted company, someone to talk to and a familiar face. I pray to God/Allah/Buddha/the Creator/whatever that neither my loved ones nor myself have to go thru what the residents of those Assisted Living facilities and their families go thru on a daily basis. But I digress.... From what I remember, Hongee stayed there for about 7 months and I continued to work there after graduation from Mount Carmel until the end of the following January of 1998, when I had to move to Virginia. After graduation Hongee went off to the University of California Riverside (up by LA but more east into the desert) for what program, I couldn't tell you. All I know it has something to do with Anthropology and she's explained it to me at least ten times but I still can't get it straight. For Thanksgiving weekend '98 I drove the hour and a half to UCR, got lost along the way at dusk in this really scary town and stayed the night in her dorm when I finally got to Riverside. Her roommate had already left by the time I arrived so I got to crash in the girl's bed. While I was there I met the guy who was to later be her boyfriend, Doron. He was a pretty nice guy from what I remember. Very quiet, too. Anywhoozle, Hong and I started off for PQ the morning after and got caught in this wicked rainstorm, something which is extremely rare in Southern California. I remember seeing on the news later that day when we finally got home that it was one of the worst in SoCal history and people did get killed. So sad.

I couldn't begin to tell you how happy I was Spring of '99 when Hong said she would be coming to Virginia (Richmond mainly, which isn't too far away) for a few short weeks to attend a cousin's wedding and stay with another cousin for the remainder of the visit. I was able to drive up and get her and she stayed with me for 4th of July weekend. Only two short days after a year and a half of not seeing each other. On the drive back to my house I stopped by a Hardees near downtown {the one across from Duman, LJ} because it was after 8 pm and we were pretty hungry. Like we were going to cook when I got home! :) When we were in line she and I both noticed a lot of people (okay, maybe not a lot but a lot for 8 pm on a saturday night) staring at her. Then I realized that a pretty young Asian woman wearing a trendy summer outfit was out of place in a restaurant where some of the customers were wearing hunting cammies. The neighborhood where we came from, Rancho Pe�asquitos (aka Rancho Filipinos), was very racially diverse while Suffolk, well, is not. A little behind in the times in some ways, if I speak truthfully. You wouldn't believe some of the crap I had to put up with when I first came here and I still sometimes hear stuff that boils my blood (like what one of my coworkers said to me about Catholics a little while back; I'm Catholic {okay, non-practicing but I'm still Catholic} ). But anyway she literally hid behind me until we left for my house, where the rest of my family happily greeted her. While she was here we only had time to go to the local mall in Chesapeake and up to Busch Gardens-Williamsburg. Then she had to go home. It was fun while it lasted. A couple of months ago I bought and mailed to her a copy of a book by James McBride called The Color of Water: A Black Man's Tribute to His White Mother, which is partially about the author's mother's experience growing up here in Suffolk about 50 or 60 years ago. I don't think that Hong's going to be coming back here anytime soon. :) Oh, those are her pretty pretty feet on the dashboard of my old POS car. She took that pic herself on the way back to Richmond. Notice the lovely crack running down the dash.

Hongee recently graduated from UC Riverside with a BS, er, BA in Anthropology (Is that right??). She's back in San Diego and contemplating grad school.

Hongongongongongongong!!!!!! {ask her what that means}