This I Believe: Powerful Laughter

I believe in the power of laughter. I believe in its ability to forge bridges between distances. My name, Yi, means happiness so laughter is something special to me. My laughter, your laughter, his laughter, we’re all laughing for the sheer joy of it and it’s something we can all share. That is what this pictures shows. It shows laughter, like a light from a fire, spreading to the face of everyone present and touching the hearts of all. It never excludes, just brings people together.

I was a new kid in school. It wasn’t the first time, since my dad’s job makes us move around the country, but this was in Norway. Its calm, postcard like demeanor was somehow terrifying to me. I was used to the hustle and bustle of city life, with street vendors and cars honking. In Norway, everything slowed down. The people walked slowly, a peaceful silence hung over the air. And school, the one place I had always felt at ease outside of home, was now as unfamiliar and uninviting as everything else. I could hear my own footsteps plodding unwillingly up the stairs and into the hallway.

As I put my bag in my locker and shut the door, I heard a sound. A comforting sound, as close to me as the sizzle of mum’s cooking. The sound of laughter. Slowly, timidly, I inched closer to the source and saw a group of girls laughing at something.

A boy, shorter than me by a lot, was balancing a football on his nose, then his forehead, and then his tongue! His face looked so comical I laughed too. Without thinking, I asked a girl next to me who he was. The girl looked at me, ignoring that she didn't even know me, and answered like she had been my friend for years. Pretty soon we were laughing and chatting like old friends. In that few seconds, maybe even minutes, of laughter, I made a friend. Just like that, I felt included and not that shy anymore.

You see, “When you laugh, the world laughs with you, but when you cry, you cry alone.” But why cry when you can laugh? Laughter is contagious, you share it without a thought but you still always have some left. That girl I met became my best friend for 3 years. Even though I moved back to Malaysia, we still contact each other through email and chat. We still tell each other everything, from the time this guy in my class fell off his chair screaming “No!” to uploading a new song on her iPod. We still remember the first day of school when I met her, and I think we can’t even go 5 sentences without referring to ‘that first day of school.’

That is why I believe laughter is powerful. It's also why I believe laughter can bring people together, forge friendships as unbreakable as iron, and can bring a newbie straight into the heart of a new school.