What does quarter of century do?

You become older. Your kids no longer stay with you. Change of order in government. A movie became classic. Internet revolutionized everything.

So it’s relatively long time.

And that’s how long we’ve been connected to each other.

Back in 1996, Singapore International Foundation offered competitive scholarships for young talents from ASEAN countries to study at Singapore. That’s how we met. We were selected and enrolled in either Nanyang Technological University (NTU) and National University of Singapore (NUS).

It was only for a semester. Less than six months. But between study classes and libraries, we spent those six months ‘wisely’. Visited interesting spots of Singapore. Took holiday break to neighboring countries. And most importantly, made strong bondage with the SIF fellows.

And how great this bondage we have.

It’s still remain strong until now. Whenever we visited each other countries, or cities where one of the fellows live, we always tried to reach out and meet. It’s too bad with COVID-19 pandemic right now, those reciprocal visits come to a halt.

But it doesn’t stop us to reach out and see each other. Especially on this year of our 25th anniversary of friendship. So we arranged a zoom call and invited everyone for a virtual reunion.

In total there were 15 fellows joined. Although not everybody could join, but all countries were represented: Indonesia, Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia and Philippines. And it’s great to see few long-lost fellows joined. We updated and shared each other lives. We had laughs, remembering the old times. And there seems no time lost between us. Not after quarter of century.