Phuong
Hong
YEP! THAT'S ME!
Hi, my name is Hong Phuong, translated to "Pink Circle", since my parents wanted my life to be pink and round! I was born on July 14th in 2008, which means I'm a Cancer (although I don't really believe in zodiac signs). I'm currently a Literature student in High School for Gifted Students in Social Sciences and Humanities. Let's take my hand and I will guide you through my garden of youth!!
“After graduation,
the thing we will remember most is not how good we did at school,
but how beloved we felt there”
Growing up with immense love from my family, I was taught to cherish all the relationships around me. When I was small, my father used to tell me about his first failure of going bankrupt, but there were his friends since high school who encouraged and helped him through the hardships. “Money may lose its value over time, but friendships are the currency of the heart that will stay with us forever”.
After he passed away, there’s only me, my mother and my brother. We’re even more closely linked to each other to fill up the absence of him. Never once in my life did I feel lonely in my own home, although sometimes tears still welled up my eyes when I thought of my lost father. I used to regret not being with him more, so I decided to love my family even more to compensate.
But the definition of family is not only family, but people I made friends with along the way.
They’re all part of my family.
When I first entered secondary school, I missed the first week’s opportunity to find a friend to talk to, so it took me nearly a month to get on with a new friend. During those days, having suffered the loneliness of eating alone every lunch break, practicing alone on P.E lessons, or walking to the bus station alone, I’ve realized something truly precious: the presence of a friend. Growing from a girl who is scared of making friends thinking “what if they don’t like me?” to the one who would break the ice with anyone around is such a journey of character development.
Like sunlight to a plant, my relationships enlighten my days in every possible way: I thrive in their warmth. Being around others isn’t just something I enjoy, but something I need. I would be so proud to say when I’m having stories, I can talk to many: a girl I still stay in touch with since elementary school, a bosom friend that we no longer study in the same high school, a “brother-but-not-related” guy that have studied abroad with a complete different time zone.
The essence of making friends is not to have a huge circle of relationships, but to have ones that are pure and true.
