This is the house neighboring to ours where lived a Serbian family. In April of 2008, the Serbian family moved to Australia, and Nede, the owner of this house had to rent his house before he left for his new job in Brisbane. Nede promised me that he would find a good neighbor for us. A couple of days later, he appeared at the door steps with two Asian ladies. I knew instantly they must be his tenant. Nede introduced them to us: Noreen the mother, and Chompoo the eldest daughter of the family from Thailand.
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My first impression about Noreen and Chompoo was that they were very friendly and polite. After they moved in, I found that Noreen was always with a hat on whenever she was out in the garden, seen on the driveway; especially when she goes to a formal occasion, then the hat is always one that seemed to be a tailor-made matching her dress. "They must be a family of high social status in Thailand." I thought to myself.
Before long, we have become friend, and we know each other more day by day. She is a retired lecturer of Chingmai university in Thailand. She has three daughters, all are named by fruit-- Passna(passion fruit), the eldest daughter, Pear and Peach, the second and third respectively. She came to live with her daughters from 2007 in order to make them proper meals for their health sake. "Chompoo and the two other girls are always Mama noodle (the instant noodle) when I'm not around", she once said.
She speaks excellent English. Most Asian people of my age group are generally not confident English speakers, but she is different. She speaks confidently and grammatically correct and she is even 11 years older than me. Her language skill and her socialable temperament enables her to befriend with people of all sort of fields wherever she goes.
She embraces the olden day social etiquette. She always tries to give generously to others and humbly take less when she is offered something as a return of her previous favor. Sometimes this give-and-receive between she and us appears to be as if we are fighting for something. And at the end of the giggling fighting, we follow her etiquette -- we receive more from her and she gets less back, and she is happy with that result.
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Noreen loves her homeland. When there is any cultural event being celebrate by the Thai community, she always earnestly inviting us to go with her. When we have a shared meal together, she usually gives comment on each dish of her make and explains how Thai people make it. In our daily conversation, she will more or less use some Thai language such as "Ko kun klap", "sawa dika".
Time seems to be passing faster when Noreen is around. Two and half a years has gone by when Noreen came to discuss with us in mid October about their plan of shifting to other place and she herself to go back to live in Thailand permanently.
As the date they return the house to the landlord is only less than a month away, Noreen asked if Jean would be interested in having a sightseeing tour to South Island with her before her departure, Jean agreed and I helped them with the tour and flight bookings.
The time passes even faster than normal after their return from the tour trip on Nov. 11 and we have meals together more offen. In one of the last few meetings, Jean cited a Chinese quote as a conclusion of our being neighbors for the past two and half years and for the eve of the parting: “但願人長久﹐千里共蟬娟”, and I tried my best in the translation-- ”only am I wishing that we all live long, and let’s get in touch through watching this full moon despite that we are being thousand miles away from each other, ”
On 18th November morning at 10:30am, half hour before she left for airport, Noreen came to say goodbye, and Jean captured the best photo of her before we all said goodbye the last time to each other.
