Small world

Time and again, we are reminded that this is such a small world that we live in. More than a month ago, we received an invitation to a wedding. One of our ex-colleagues from our Ban Hin Lee Bank days was inviting us to a luncheon on the occasion of her son's marriage.

So there we were today, at the Chinese restaurant opposite the St Anne's Church in Jalan Kulim, Bukit Mertajam. The moment we stepped into the restaurant, we met a man who looked so familiar to us. We acknowledged each other but my wife and I were hard put to remember where we had seen him.

The tables allotted to us were already semi-filled with many of our old ex-colleagues and several more arrived. To us, this was a reunion of old friends from our banking days. My wife looked around and even saw some of her old school friends and acquaintances who used to frequent the Safira Club in Seberang Jaya.

Towards the end of the dinner, she alerted me to an old lady seated at the main table. She's familiar, my wife mentioned to me. And why not, as we realised suddenly that this old lady was a former immediate neighbour of ours when we still stayed in the Semilang area of Seberang Jaya. The last we had seen of her was maybe two years ago when we attended the acupuncture sessions at a temple there. We hadn't seen her lately.

So we went up to talk to her and learnt that it was her grand-daughter that was getting married. Her grand-daughter was getting married to the son of our ex-colleague friend from the bank. What a coincidence! What began as us attending a wedding luncheon as guests of the groom's parents ended with us discovering that we were also friends with the bride's side.