post-fun run euphoria of the birthday celebrant, thanks and acknowledgment to Mr Kirby Hartigan-Go
Belated happy birthday (6th April) to Mr Wilson “Ason” Ng !
You didn’t have to be Wilson’s classmate to know the two things batchmates knew him for in school. I actually had the pleasure once or twice, but his renown had already spread beyond the four walls of whatever classroom he was in.
The first was his facility in Mandarin, which most of us had a little difficulty using unless it was watching martial arts movies. He was good in both spoken and written versions, and his level was right up there with the best in the batch.
He was good enough to converse with our teachers from Taiwan and other authentic posts in the Middle Kingdom (one or two actually came from PROC I think), and whenever we were genuinely confounded by idioms and expressions of our Confucian maestras, we would sometimes turn to him for oral footnoting and linguistic illumination. He was, as regards Mandarin expertise, the real deal.
But he was also one of the craftiest players we encountered on the basketball court. He knew all the tips and tricks, and he knew how to compensate for any disadvantage he and his teams faced against taller and faster opponents. He had a basketball IQ that towered over his peers (meaning me), who were still learning how to master dribbling and passing moments before the game started.
Supercool with an extra language and court skillz. Travelling through your high school years and fighting for peer acceptance, you couldn’t go wrong with those assets, and Wilson usually ended up with flying colors.
Belated happy birthday classmate!
https://youtu.be/NtQnRpVg7WY?si=Vf-OqEWx94LW-V6c IN MY TIME AS New Zealand migrant and OFW (overseas Filipino worker), I’ve had nine-ish landlords. Only one of…
