the three of us had dinner with a new colleague. her name's ching ling, and she just came over from singapore for a two-year contract with capitaland china. she's only one year older than me, quite kantang, looks tan and sporty. she's petite, but she said she plays touch rugby! don't play play huh? she's quite cheerful and nice to talk to, think we can be friends. :) i feel more lonely here in shanghai. i have always thought i was quite independent back home, but i haven't realised i was emotionally dependent on my family and friends. i always have a gigantic attitude problem towards people i don't like, but right now, i am staying with two people whom i would never have made friends with back home. this is really good training, and maybe, what they call retribution. haha, terrible how our chemistry always go all wrong, and one or the other person is often pissed off. that's why i appreciate people a lot more now. even with my two housemates, we do look out for each other and treat each other decently, although i don't think we'll really keep in touch once we get out of this place. i make it a point to be friendlier to all the nice people i meet here, because i have so few friends. but i am not a social animal lah, am still rather quiet unless i meet someone with chemistry or the same brand of humour. chung eng and ying soon are nice people to hang out with. i thought ying soon was rather quiet initially, and didn't have much things to say to him. but i went to the museum with him on saturday (ES flew our plane), and thought he was funny with my same brand of humour. a very buddy-buddy potential. chung eng is best, because she reminds me of my auntie annie, very qing qie, and she has her weird stories and gossips about the company to share. and maybe because she's a lot older, so she is like a sisterly figure, and will invite us over to her place for yummy curry chicken and si chuan soup. *drools* renyao and haifang are two chinese nationals who are actually MW's gf's friends. wah, long relation huh? they are nice to talk to, but of course, must watch diplomacy when talking to them. they came from hubei, and are milder and more soft-spoken than the shanghainese. haifang is really nice in a prim and proper way, meaning no crapping or monkeying around lah. i think it's the gender issue resulting in me saying less than 5 sentences to renyao, despite having gone out twice with them. really, the guys and gals here keep a distance, and haifang was once quite embarrassed when she had to share an umbrella with renyao, although they were friends since high school. i thought it's quite amusing, because they can be so shameful about things like calling first names and sharing umbrellas, but quite not shy when wearing thin pyjamas to do groceries. another of the many culture shocks for me. noelle is a singaporean gal who is also under the workasia programme. she's doing multimedia in singapore poly, and working with NCS in pudong. she came here all alone, is staying alone, and her company also employed only her. noelle is the very garung gal whom i went to hangzhou with, good company in a sisterly way. although she's one year younger than me, she's a lot more independent, and operates pretty well on her own. i don't think i'll be able to cope if i were all alone like her, that's why i admire her a lot. but we see things very differently, and there's this chemistry lacking between us, if you get what i'm saying. that about sums up my new friends. i really don't know whether these friends will become just faces in photos, like the many friends made in school camps. but still, it's a real pleasure to know nice people. afterall, i never know when our paths will cross again.