Chang Chong Chen

Since i was a little girl, i used to be amazed and inspired by the Belgian cartoonist Herge(Georges Remy)'s famous work The adventures of Tin Tin. Other than reading about how Harry Potter and his friends grew up from mischievous little kids to mature and happy young adults and how they dealt with everything that came in their way, i also leaned on Tin Tin for a dose of adventure and lessons about friendship and hope. Although i was a Sinophobe(which was quite ironic because majority of my blood is Chinese- since my mom is Filipino-Spanish and dad's a full Chinese) back then, my favorites among all the 24 Tin Tin comics are The Blue Lotus, Tin Tin in Tibet, Cigars of the Pharoah and Prisoners of the Sun. The first two had Tin Tin's young loyal Chinese friend Chang Chong Chen in the story.
Chang was quiet, sweet, nice, courageous and very brave- sounds like some freaking Gryffindor. He was an orphan who almost drowned in a flood when the orphanage he lives in was washed away and Tin Tin saved him. Then Tin Tin, Wang Chen Yee and Mrs. Wang were saved from being chopped off by a mad Di Di by Chang's very brave intervention along with Wang Chen Yee's homies. After that Wang Chen Yee adopted Chang and Tin Tin went home to Belgium. Then some time later, Chang went to live in Hong Kong and Wang Chen Yee's brother in London wanted him to live there so Chang sets off to London but the plane he was riding on crashed in the Himalayas. Tin Tin had a dream of him calling for help in Tibet, so he sets off for Kathmandu and then to Tibet after all the beggings and reluctance of Captain Haddock, Tharkey the sherpa and many others. Chang on the other hand, survived the crash but he was taken by the yeti. Good thing, the yeti took care of him and grew very fond. In the end, Tin Tin managed to save Chang from the yeti and then in the Castafiore Emerald, Chang is in London working in his adopted uncle's home. I was a first grader back then and i believed that Shanghai was part of Hong Kong(for some unknown reasons) and Hukow was Macau. The story is set in Shanghai(which i think back then was Hong Kong) and it was near Hukow(in what i heard back then Macau) where Tin Tin first met Chang- so i came to believe that Chang, Wang Chen Yee, Di Di, Mrs. Wang and some other people lives in Hong Kong. Then i got to read(and have my own copy of) Tin Tin in Tibet, where my belief that Chang was a Hong Konger went stronger when it was mentioned Chang is from Hong Kong in the newspaper. There was no youtube back then so i came to believe Chang was a Hong Konger for a long, long time- from elementary to (probably) third year highschool.

Then the years passed by, the Italian Disney comics W.I.T.C.H came and suddenly, my love for Tin Tin went mute and almost forgotten. But there is one thing that Tin Tin strongly influenced my life back then. Being a European lover back then, I used to think that Hong Kong was just like Manila- a polluted and overpopulated city that there's nothing quite special about it. During the days i was a French culture lover(grade 4-5) turned Italian aspirant(grade 6) turned German girl(first year- second year), my only definition of Hong Kong is Chang Chong Chen.
I was fully aware back then that tito John is a Hong Konger and i have Chinese relatives there but for me, Chang was the only awesome person in Hong Kong back then.
Then my way of thinking about Hong Kong changed suddenly. I noticed the people there were like me and Hong Kong is much cleaner, safer and more modern than Manila. Then I came to know that Hong Kong is more than Chang Chong Chen.

Then, after watching again some Tin Tin episodes did i discover that the setting of the Blue Lotus was in Shanghai(the city in China) and Chang(and probably Wang Chen Yee) moved to Hong Kong during the time of Tin Tin in Tibet. But i still regard Chang as a Hong Konger, a very cool one. There are many other awesome Hong Kongers like Jackie Chan, Maggie Cheung Man Yuk, Hawick Lau, Maggie Cheung Ho Yee, Stanley Ho, Donald Tsang, tito John, Shirley Wong, Lily Wong, Rocky Wong, Ah Pong Wong, Kelly Chen, Jade Chan and some others but i still think Chang's the most wicked among them all.

Meet the Malabanans

Before i entered IJMCP, i expected that i will have no Harry Potter loving friends there since back then i had the notion that Harry Potter is for kids only. But surprise took me the moment i met Gt and his cousins ate Kim and -especially- Keith. They proved to me that highschool students can also enjoy the joys Harry Potter give when they became my best friends. But like the saying that i learnt in Montessori "Nothing is constant in this world but change", my friends quickly changed their ways and slid away from me. Although Gt, ate Kim, Tata and Nr still treats me well, Keith was different. He treats me like i don't exist and tries everything he can to avoid me to the point when some teacher tries to group me and him in a project or dance, he would find a way to shake either me or him off the team. He would find a way to seperate us even if it would take serious means to break it off. And im amazed he almost always manage to seperate. So, other than breaking my friendship with him, he really did a good job to soar my hatred on him to the point i want him to disappear in my life and never see him again.

Two years after experiencing a kind of betrayal from friends whom i thought would never suddenly change, i never wished having Harry Potter loving friends again in my highschool life and became numb when it comes to having best friends. I just don't want to get hurt again like what they-especially Keith- did to me. I just told myself to get used with being alone and my only close friends in school are my classmates and sir Ian. I don't want to be messed up with another friendship that would leave me again in agony especially it will be my last year in highschool. It took me about two years(october 2007 to april 2009) to get over it and i don't want to get through another frustration again.

But then, two second year students moved in to Montessori and when i saw them first i expected them to be total loners(and i promised myself to be close with my classmates only), Harry Potter haters(since they are devout born-agains like Phoebe) and had no chances of being close friends with me but i made a grievous fault.
June has passed and i was having fun within the comfort zone of my classmates. But then fate has it that most of us got seperated with each other because of the Nutrition Month cooking fest. All highschool students were divided into seperate groups and almost all fourth years were made to be leaders of the groups. I ended up to be the leader of the team which composed of Asriel, Twinkle, Marlon, Camille and Jonathan. I never, ever expected anything from Jonathan and i treated him something like scheisse even if Twinkle insisted on me that Jonathan is an expert on cooking since his mom is learning to be a chef. In the end, i gave in and made Jonathan my junior assistant(with Asrie as my volunteering head chef/senior assistant). Then there was a sudden twist of fate when Jonathan found out that i was a Harry Potter fan. "So what?" my stressed-from-doing-everything-and-studying-for-the-UPCAT self snapped at Jonathan. He smiled and told me that he was also a Harry Potter fan too, as well as his siblings Mark, Emerson, Clarisse and James. So that began a friendship that i never expected will bloom out.
At first, i don't hang that much with them since im afraid that they are maybe like Gt, Keith and ate Kim- who will also leave me for good. But after long, i began to consider them as my homies including Marlon and NR. After the Nutrition month celebration, i began to hang out with them in the library, telling them things about Harry Potter. Not long, i found myself having lunch with them and our conversations went beyond Harry Potter. Due to constant pressure in the sportsfest and my numbness on best friendships, i think i started eating with them at either the weeks during my cheering practice or the week when i was studying for the DLSUCET since i remember telling them that i will take the DLSUCET and they are all bidding me "Good luck".
Well, now it's only a few months away before i have to graduate and leave Montessori, im so glad i finally made good friends such as the Malabanans before i go and start life again. I hope i'll be able to keep in touch with them and also meet friends as good as them when im in college. With all the challenges that lies on college life, who knows i will or i won't?