In Memory of Han Xiang

Today I attended his wake. Honestly, I do not know him, but I cried for him. He was in the same year as I am... but now I have to refer to him in past tense.

He passed away because of a hit-and-run accident.

He was too young to leave... too young to have tasted the pleasures in life!

I do not know him well, but he was a person with a bright future ahead of him. He was Vice President of this and Assistant Secretary of that.

And most of all, he had a girlfriend. I feel her sorrow! Myself, a person that didn't know him - cried like mad for him. How can anyone know how sad it must have been for her?

The both of them had gone for Bon Odori together, but then he dropped her home first before he went to watch a movie with his friends.

He was hit by a car and was sent flying into a tree... he suffered for some hours before people found him and sent him to a hospital. But it was too late for him.

Han Xiang had a very beautiful face, for a male. He looked smart and he had many, mnay friends. Even people who didn't know him cried for him.

The number of people who went for his wake - just today - filled an entire LARGE 'bas sekolah'.

How can you not cry when you see his father crying? How can you not cry when his beautiful face was scarred beyond recognition? How can you not cry, when you see that his forehead had stitches, his hair turned grey, his face all puffered up - when he was in that happy beautiful face when he was alive?

How can you not cry, when Seok Eng was sad beyond description? How can you not cry, when you see a usually happy Wilson cry? How can you not cry, when his whole class was between sobs all throughout school? How can you not cry when you enter his class... and when you feel that absolutely sad aura that enveloped all his classmates?

Han Xiang shall always be remembered, despite the too few memories I have of him. He shall always be remembered as a victim of irresponsible and errant drivers, that has yet robbed the future of another student full of calibre.

All in all, I hope that he is happy, far away in the other dimension, that he is so sociable that he continues to make new friends even though he is gone.

One of his many new friends - is me.

~In Memory of Han Xiang, 2008~