In My Life 1: The Love Of CHK

'Her name is Lai Yee. Chan Lai Yee.

I like her. She doesn't wear earrings, her hair is curly and tied up in two little bunches, em... she's pretty.

Do you want to come on a date? To a romantic dinner?

No, I keep it a secret.

I don't want the whole world to know!

Because everybody will laugh at me.

She doesn't like me.'

Unfortunately I don't get to do the surprised little smile at the end and then walk her by her tiny hands into the sunset.

Ah, what a beautiful little ad! Once more, thumbs up to Yasmin Ahmad for playing Cupid to the innocent love between two little kids! I can just see little Hong Ming during recess on his 'romantic dinner' with Umi!

My first crush would have been in kindergarten, I think. (yes, I started young!) (eee... hamsap!) She was the cutest girl in the class and really bright for her age. She had naturally curly hair which was tied up in two bunches and she had sweet brown skin from her mixed parentage.

We were never officially together (ha ha!) but we used to do things together all the time - playing together, talking about nothing in particular in a way that six year olds do, and also exchanging those Padini Smurf stickers (does anyone remember them at all?).

The problem with kindergarten is that when it ends, you pretty much go on your own separate ways - everyone heads on to a different primary school, and we were a bunch of underprivileged six year olds back then - no handphones, no MSN messenger and we couldn't exchange Facebook details at all.

We met again six years later - I was going for the first time in my life to a local tuition class to brush up on my BM (Saya masih tidak petah bercakap dalam Bahasa Melayu, dan walaupun saya pergi ke kelas tuisyen selama enam bulan, saya hanya berjaya mendapat gred B sahaja dalam karangan untuk UPSR). It was a class of about twenty students, and I entered midway through the year.

I was the awkward outsider, polite to my classmates without making friends, and I usually sat by myself at the back of the class. She was also in the class, although she had grown up in the interim of the six years that I hadn't seen her. It wasn't until the teacher called her name out in class one day that I recognised her.

You would have thought at this point that I would have walked up to her and said 'Hi, remember me?' but I was not quite the charmer I am now. (And not nearly as modest.)

I think she recognised me too - I might be going out on a limb here - but I think she started dressing up to come to tuition class after I started coming. Being the twelve year olds with awkward social graces that we were, unfortunately, we never said 'Hi' to each other in those six months.

I never returned to the tuition class after my UPSR year and once again we parted ways - this time for good.

There has been an interim of fifteen years now, but Lai Yee, if there's any chance that you've googled yourself and stumbled upon this blog - I'm sorry, and well, hi.