“Good friends, good books, and a sleepy conscience: this is the ideal life.”
― Mark Twain
The definition of friend is a little different from that of twenty years ago when we still didn’t know about technology. In this technologically connected world, we can easily make a lot of “friends” via all sorts of social networks. Yes, we do enjoy the ability to have a glimpse into daily happenings of our acquaintances, friends and even those whom we never met in person. In this connected world, the term “friend” is often used to describe contacts rather than friendship.
I have many of those “friends” whom I never met personally but am connected with on social media. But that’s not the same thing as having a friendship with one by one. So, nowadays it might be rare to have those who stay connected by social media as well as by true friendship, especially when it comes to those who are living abroad.
Hasnul Zainal Tamin, however, isn’t one of those typical “friends”. I have been connected with him on social media and have often met in real life as well. All the way from Indonesia, he has been visiting Japan a couple of times a year thanks to his job, inviting his friends all together to meet up at his leisure.
I had met Hasnul through an acquaintance a few years ago and have been keeping in touch with him on social media. Last time when he visited Japan, he invited me to participate in an Islamic festival held at Tokyo Camii, the largest mosque in the country, and that was the very first time to have a look inside of a mosque in my life. (I’ve posted the article about my visiting the mosque on this blog last year. If you’re interested, you can read it from here.)
Every time he comes back to Japan, he invites his friends and acquaintances all together to hang out. On February 12th, we met together and were seven in total: three Japanese, including myself, three Indonesians and a Russian. I met the most of them for the first time but hit it off right away. We talked about all sorts of things, including politics, our dreams, technologies, what type of girls we like, our jobs, and more.
Here are several of my photos of Hasnul, his friends and snapshots of Tokyo/Yokohama I photographed on the day.
