The group Whodini had a popular song in the early ’80s called Friends. In it, there’s a line that goes “Friends, how many of us have them?”…Good question.
Let’s first define exactly what is a “friend”? Is it someone you know? Someone you trust? Someone you’ve shared a memorable experience with? I’d like to think it’s a combination of all the above.
I have fond memories when I think about the guys I grew up with in Miami. Bryan. Jean. Cedric. Marcus. There was a group of us, but these guys were the main characters. These were the guys I went to jr. high and highschool with (some I’ve known since elementary school). When I say we grew up together, I mean we slept over at each other’s houses, played basketball together, went bike riding, hung out at the mall, etc. Of course, as we got older.. we got older. Drivers licenses. House parties. Roadtrips. Late nights out and about doing what 17-18 years old do whenever there out and about late at night. It was good times. No, I take that back. It was great times. We had our arguments here and there as all best friends do. Nothing that ever was so extreme that we couldn’t recover from.
After graduation, it wasn’t a drastic change.. but things changed.
Personal paths started to take us in different directions.
Then I left Miami in 2001 and that was a crucial point for me. While living in New York, we maintained contact for a bit.
I think the last time we all saw each other and hung out was about 3 years ago in’07.
These are the people that knew Jin before the world knew Jin. Priceless memories. Priceless friendships.
I pray they are all doing well and living healthy, happy, fruitful lives.
Come to think of it. In this day and age, it shouldn’t be too difficult to find an old friend.
24 Responses to “How many of us have them?”Leave a Comment |
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there are different levels of friends but the basic idea is more or less what you’ve said plus i’d add for me, a person that gives you feelings of affection and support…
Dear Jin, your story is so touching, I think you have a talent to be a writer too! Add Oil! There are so many people love you! I’ll keep praying for you!
*Sniff* *Sniff*
this reminds me of the episode in big boys club about “hing dais”…friends to me are those i can trust and count on to have my back when i need it
friendship is such a big part of our lives, one of my friends once sent me a quote:
A true friend is someone who thinks that you are a good egg even though he knows that you are slightly cracked.” — Bernard Meltzer.
I think this is so true, your friends are the ones who stick by you regardless less of what happens. I hope that everyone will find ones that stick by, whether it’s only one of two.
great read, so true. friends are an important part of life, i think at every level, be it aquintance, best friend, old friends, new friends, what have you. those are the people you build your character out of. ’07′s quite some time, hope y’all get to kick it soon
Friends come in many forms…I have friends that I have know for yrs…some that live far away that I haven’t seen in a few yrs..but still talk to them regularly and a few of whom I never actually meant in person thanks to mutal friends&the technology of facebook,myspace&twitter.You can never have too many friends and I love the fact that I can call on each one of them for many different reasons!!!
hey jin my friend asked me if i knew what one of your older songs was that you did, he said its not on any of your albums and its featuring you or its a remix with you, the only information i have that it was originally sung by a white girl with brown hair, and its not a slow beat. i tried looking it up and cant really think of anything. if you could help us with a song list of all the stuff you’ve done or narrow it down for us it would be greatly appreciated. thank you
yo Jin gor,
I love this article,your growing story is very touch me..I think most of us have a good memory of our childhood,we play with each other without any purpose,and although many arguments here,it recover quickly…
when I am growing up,I have ever heard that it’s hard to know someone’s heart,cuz most of them would keep a distance to us to protect themselves.what that means?I think they have gone through to trust sb,but was hurt by them,so dun trust everyone from now on.I wanna say thank u to my frds here who still trust me and share their pleasure, anger, sorrow, joy to me
In my opinon, if you consider someone as a frd,dun care for gain and loss,do your responsibility what a frd need to do,and share ur memorable experience ,support ur frd when he lose…plus,long distance cant change the relationship..keep in touch with each other guys.dun say the excuse that u are busy…
well,man.when u think u havnt got frds,plz receive positive energy from music,I think it’s one of good ways to let u know,especially MC Jin’s hiphop,he will tell u that how we should love in the world.
hope everyone have memorable friendship.and Jin I would like to join ur friends group,may I?haha
cheers,
Cheyanne
If it’s not so hard this day and age to find an old friend, what is stopping you? I am sure that there’s something inside you that makes you want to find them again, and see how they are doing. if you didn’t, then would this blog have been posted? =)
I miss mine too…
I think friend is like a mirror, not only relect how good and nice u are, also reflect how bad and weak you are sometimes. Nowadays ppl have a hard time to tell the truth coz no one wants to hear it! But I insist to keep on telling the truth to my friends, although it pissed them off sometimes (hehe^^)
When you get older, you realize that ppl just come and go in ur life, only a few stay. They say that the older u get, the harder u make real “friend”. It’s so true, all the “friends” u make after school just fade away as thing changes. But the friend u grew up with are still there. I guess because they play a big part in your youth memories. So u miss them all the time, as u miss ur youth(?) I’ve got quite a few friends like that. Feels like they are my family, but different, coz u don’t get to choose ur family, u choose ur friends though.
I went to the U.S. when I was 16, barely moved back to HK a yr ago. I was gone for 11 yrs, but I managed to keep the friends I made when I was 13 or 14. I guess it’s b/c we experienced too many “things” together between the age of 14-16. At that time, we would sneaked out the house at nite, go to bars (yes we were under age, but it never stop us), meet boys, bla bla bla (all kinds of stuff that college ppl would do!) During that long 11 yrs in the U.S., we would call each other once a while to keep everyone updated on our lives. I think it takes both parties’ effort to keep the relationship. If any of us got lazy, I’m sure the friendship will fade away easily. Now I’m back to HK, it feels like I’ve never left. We hang out every other day. I treasure these friends a lot! Hope that everyone are as lucky as I am to have some life-long friends like that!
BTW, now I have to put effort to keep the friends I made from high shcool (in the U.S.), how tired?! haha but I love it~
Oh yeah, a easy way to tell who ur real friend is: when you are in deep sh*t, u’ll know who they are~
Yea.. so many friends i grew up with, but the ‘main characters’ are all over the world now. It’s funny how we don’t always need to talk but when we get together it’s still epic!!!!!!! Hmmm but the last time I got together with my 2 best friends was back in ’06… feels like forever ago
bless you
Hi Jin. Here again you talk about the influence people have on each other, which is what we believe in: people affect people, share and impact. I’m from AIESEC in the Chinese University of Hong Kong. It’s an internatioanal student organization that organizes youth conferences and exchanges. What AIESEC do is basically to promote intercultural understanding through cultural impact and develop young people to realize their potential to think more and to affect others as well. We are organizing an event called AIESEC week (6-8 Apr), and the theme is Embrace Cultural diversity, Rethink Local Opportunity. We’ve been wanting to invite you as a guest speaker for a long time because of what you have been through. You have such a unique cultural background and identity, and right now after achieving so much in US you come back to Hong Kong and bring all these thing into a new blend. All these are very intriguing for us, young people, university students who are still seeking their dreams and sometimes lost about themselves and the society. That’s why we really wish to invite you to share your story with our young people. Someone like you who have walked through the road would have great influence on them. I understand you have a busy schedule, but we would really appreciate if you could come and have a few words with our eager minds. Please take a moment to consider this, and if you are interested, please contact me at henrietta.lo@aiesec.net. Cheers!
Hi Jin. Here again you talk about the influence people have on each other, which is what we believe in: people affect people, share and impact. I’m from AIESEC in the Chinese University of Hong Kong. It’s an internatioanal student organization that organizes youth conferences and exchanges. What AIESEC do is basically to promote intercultural understanding through cultural impact and develop young people to realize their potential to think more and to affect others as well. We are organizing an event called AIESEC week (6-8 Apr), and the theme is Embrace Cultural diversity, Rethink Local Opportunity. We’ve been wanting to invite you as a guest speaker for a long time because of what you have been through. You have such a unique cultural background and identity, and right now after achieving so much in US you come back to Hong Kong and bring all these thing into a new blend. All these are very intriguing for us, young people, university students who are still seeking their dreams and sometimes lost about themselves and the society. That’s why we really wish to invite you to share your story with our young people. Someone like you who have walked through the road would have great influence on them. I understand you have a busy schedule, but we would really appreciate if you could come and have a few words with our eager minds. Please take a moment to consider this, and if you are interested, please contact me at henrietta.lo@aiesec.net. Cheers!
^^^
I will have someone from management contact you! Thanks for reaching out
OL Dee
dxxxy1026@hotmail.com
147.8.72.117
Submitted on 2010/03/04 at 8:37pm
I think friend is like a mirror, not only relect how good and nice u are, also reflect how bad and weak you are sometimes. Nowadays ppl have a hard time to tell the truth coz no one wants to hear it! But I insist to keep on telling the truth to my friends, although it pissed them off sometimes (hehe^^)
When you get older, you realize that ppl just come and go in ur life, only a few stay. They say that the older u get, the harder u make real “friend”. It’s so true, all the “friends” u make after school just fade away as thing changes. But the friend u grew up with are still there. I guess because they play a big part in your youth memories. So u miss them all the time, as u miss ur youth(?) I’ve got quite a few friends like that. Feels like they are my family, but different, coz u don’t get to choose ur family, u choose ur friends though.
I went to the U.S. when I was 16, barely moved back to HK a yr ago. I was gone for 11 yrs, but I managed to keep the friends I made when I was 13 or 14. I guess it’s b/c we experienced too many “things” together between the age of 14-16. At that time, we would sneaked out the house at nite, go to bars (yes we were under age, but it never stop us), meet boys, bla bla bla (all kinds of stuff that college ppl would do!) During that long 11 yrs in the U.S., we would call each other once a while to keep everyone updated on our lives. I think it takes both parties’ effort to keep the relationship. If any of us got lazy, I’m sure the friendship will fade away easily. Now I’m back to HK, it feels like I’ve never left. We hang out every other day. I treasure these friends a lot! Hope that everyone are as lucky as I am to have some life-long friends like that!
BTW, now I have to put effort to keep the friends I made from high shcool (in the U.S.), how tired?! haha but I love it~
Oh yeah, a easy
^^^
Great story! you have friends everywhere!
Thanks for the reminder =)
Looking back…i don’t reli qualify for being a frd. Way behind the standard…i should say.
Too many excuses for not meeting my old frds in these few yrs. Its reli time to reconnect with them.
‘Personal paths started to take us in different directions.’
thats a similar words from a bk as i read.it made me grasp a lot.there are many relationships in our life,friendship,partnership,neigbourhood so on..we dont need all of them to be friends,but in a memory
i have an old classmate whom i havent met her for around 2years.now i can just know her things through reading her blog.im glad to see her following god truly.however i just wish her everything gonna well.
one of my friends who is my best friend gets along with me in about 10more years(she accompanied me to meet you before.)our friendship faced a crisis before,fortunatelywe still be closed friends now.god bless!
wow!i better stop here,otherwise the large amount of words may dizzy you cuz i saw many long passages on upside..haha
LOVE IT! have the whole season
i agree..friendships and memories are priceless <3 sometimes taking a break and just reminiscing the good ol' times are truly amazing. just typing this right now makes me think of so many things. loved this entry : D
hey Jin nice article. I could definitely relate to some of your (and others Experience), main characters, my realest friends from wayy back are out doing their own thing. I remember last year when I went back to japan after being gone for over 12 years, I went to my old apartment in tsurumi-ichiba, and i remember the memories I’ve had living there and a few blocks from where I lived, I remember I had a child-hood frined who i kicked it for 3 years( thats how long i was in japan for) so i remember just walking there, seen the house stil there up the stairs, I nock on the door, couldn’t barley speak japanese anymore, i forgoet, and then I see him, right ther, after 12 years no emails, no facebooks no contact, that was a few days before i had to fly back to america, for him to be home and at that house at that time after 12 years, man i knew right there, i mean i always knew, like damn. can’t even imagein, after all those years he still show mad love for me he remembers as well as I did.
thats why I know, even though not everybody beleives in a higher deity, man I know God wouldn’t, it might be a long as time before I go back to japan and I might not see him again or my other reallest all over this bitch, but damn God won’t let that happen, maybe not in this life, but on the next after life. i know we will meet up
@ J.P. – Amen to that bro! That’s awesome that after all those years.. ya’ll still had that bond like that.
I love F.R.I.E.N.D.S!