Minchee Comments
Minchee Comments
| In response to an email we received from Ronnie Rodrigues, Dennis Franco climbed out of his warm cozy nook in Beijing to enlighten us with some gossip. The following is what he wrote (on 17 March 2008), and we are re-producing it with his permission (and only minor editing):
Hope you're well these days. I'm in Beijing. Getting by and getting older.
I was looking through the minchee website to see if there was anything new and saw a note from Ronnie Rodrigues aka 'Princess'.
Here's a brief gossip on the past......
Along with Gerald Cruz, Eddie Vas, Leonard Rozario, Peter Barnes, Michael Marcal, Ricky da Rosa, Eddie Silva and others, Ronnie was my La Salle classmate up till about form 4 and then he pissed off to the UK.
Used to be quite pally with him. Ronnie was not athletic (very skinny actually) but a very good model builder, tanks especially. He actually tried to play hockey with us but gave up shortly.
I had a crush on his elder sister Odette. She turned me down of course ... just a young kid in her eyes. She dated and eventually married Jacky Apieu, brother of Johnny Apieu. Jacky was in La Salle but not Johnny I think. These brothers were actually 2 classes above us and that meant a big difference to the chicks back in school days.
A couple of years after he left for the UK, I "took over" his former girlfriend Leslie Lang. I was 18 by then, and was riding my new Suzuki trail bike.
She was a KGV girl, Eurasian, fairly cute, nice figure and had a strange dance style. Unfortunately for her, as you well know, our gang are very quick to pass out nicknames and hers became " Jumping Jack Flash". She's a nice person though.
I had to break off with her eventually cos she was complaining that I paid more attention to my bike than her. Good God! What an understatement. She should have known better than to come between a young guy and his new bike. Ahhhh....the uncomplexity of youth. I chose the bike.
It's been over 25 years since my last contact with Ronnie and it's nice to know he's still alive.
I made contact with him this evening (17 March 2008). We had a chat on Skype. As with ol buddies, we just got into it as if we had been in touch all along. Ronnie told me today that Odette is still married to Jacky and they are living in France. That's happy news considering most of the people I know are divorced at least once. She was the one who suggested the minchee site to him. Ronnie is in Brighton and also still happily married to his first wife and have 3 kids.
You should be pleased that your minchee site has brought unimaginable happiness to so many people.
Thanks again Dennis also put together a music collage of pics and it's been uploaded to Webshots.com. He asked us to point out that he did not intentionally leave anyone out of the collage; he just used the pics he had available. It's a pretty neat video, so spare a few minutes, turn on your speakers, and enjoy.
A few of those pics have not appeared here on the Minchee.com site until now, so click here for more entertainment. "Hi. I have just found out after 44 years that I am of Macanese descent. I am very interested in learning about my heritage. I have always thought I was born to Portuguese but could never figure out why my mother was born in Hong Kong and lived in Macau. I noticed that there are a lot of Remedios in your group. I am also from a Remedios family. My grandmother (my mothers mom) was named Laura Remedios. Her parents names were Jose de Souza and Anna Mattos If you have any information about them I would appreciate anything you can help me with". Miguel Remedios kindly offered to do the research, and this is what he told us: "After I did all the research, it turns out that we are related, she and I; from 5 generations of Remedios' back. Our great, great ,great Grandfathers were brothers; a year apart. Her Dad's Polish and her husband is probably caucasian, so she probably looks like a 100% white girl. She was blown away by my research. Glad I was able to help and to meet a distant relative. Another person to see when I visit Toronto next". Rennie says: Is it any wonder that I love doing this? J "I looked at all those great pictures and it gave me memories from way back. I lived 9 floors above Mike and Dougs (Delgados) in the same building so it was good to find their old pix as well. I'll be contacting them to re-establish ties soon. Thank you for the trip down memory lane". "Hi there, "I live in Hong Kong but visit my older children from time to time in Brisbane. My daughter Taryn lives in Windsor and works for the Queensland Government and my son Jose who lives in Fig Tree Pocket is studying in Brisbane. He was previously at BBC and UQ. My brother Jeremy's family live in Brisbane in Chelmer. I will forward the site to him". "Please add to the subset if you know of others who used to nick things from Fei Lo's shop!!! Would be great to catch up with all those from the Bank Flats that I used to harass as a child and who used to bully the crap out of me. I'm in Canberra now and have 3 kids, 2 boys David (19) and Jordan (17), and 1 girl Courtney (15). My wife's name is Tracey. I've caught up with Sandy, Gerald and Bill Botelho over different times in HKG over the last few years. Was back in HKG playing football between 93-99. Family was there too and went to ESF "gweilo school" Causeway Bay, just like their father, Sandy and JoJo Gomes. I'm now a travel agent in Canberra and planning to have a look at Hawaii. I reckon any Bank Flats vs. The Rest football game would be a laugh. We can play until our spouses (as opposed to our parents when we were in HKG) yell to us to come home for a shower and dinner!!! Would be great to hear from others on this list and those that I haven't got. Kind regards and "boo da la" This is what Deedum had to say in her email to us: "I did send Mario an e-mail, and he replied, he did go to school in Australia with my brothers and my cousins. My brother Jim is actually visiting me right now, so I will show him the e-mail, and perhaps they can keep in touch". Kathy says she attended the Class of '65 Reunion in May 2005, where she met up with former Maryknoll girls she hadn't seen in decades. "It was a wonderful reunion", she declared. Kathy went on to say she is now living in Ottawa and, "I am presently a Harp Performance Major at Carleton University in Ottawa and have a small business selling and renting harps". So there you go. If you ever need a harp, you know whom to call. Kathy's email address is listed on our email addresses page. "Hey, we have something in common. I used to play hockey for Recreio in the late 1960's. I was the goal keeper. I am a Maryknoller and know Janet and Monique Remedios. I've been in Canada since 1970. Don't know if they remember me or not. They were also 'sai lo kor' like you in terms of my generation being one level up from you guys. How's the response for Hawaii? I suppose it's your generation that will be attending, but it has been fun reading up and keeping in touch with the 'sai lo kors'. Thanks for your work and efforts in keeping reunions alive. We are such a small minority in the world stage that we must stick together for survival". More recently (November 17th, 2005), Doreen sent us a poem about leaving home. "I just had this poem published in the 2005 Fall Issue of the Lusitano Bulletin. Friends have encouraged me to send it to a wider readership since they felt the same sentiments in the poem. The only reason I sent it along to you is because I have been getting quite a bit of comments about how this poem touched a few of them. Many of them said they understood the feeling of their first flight leaving their homeland. Do you remember your first feelings of leaving Hong Kong? It was both bitter and sweet at the same time. But now we are all happily settled in our new adopted homes. |
| Updated 15 March 2008 | Home | These pages sponsored by Rennie Marques |