Describe a party for a special event that impressed you

I'd like to talk about a retirement party for my old literature teacher, Mrs Liên, which was held last June in Pleiku, in the Central Highlands. She'd taught at the same lower secondary school for thirty-four years, and a group of former students decided she deserved more than the usual bouquet and speech from the headmaster. The party took place in the schoolyard on a Saturday evening, under the same flame trees we used to sit under. As for who came, the organisers expected about eighty people and nearly two hundred turned up, from classes going back to the early nineties. There was a man in his forties who'd driven six hours from Quy Nhơn with his two children asleep in the back seat. The food was nothing fancy, just grilled chicken, bamboo-tube rice and a lot of iced tea on plastic tables. What impressed me was one idea in particular. Mrs Liên was known for writing long comments in red ink at the bottom of our essays, and somebody had asked everyone to bring an old exercise book if they still had one. Dozens of people had. They were laid out on a table, and she walked along it reading her own handwriting from decades ago. She picked up one, laughed and said, 'I gave you a five for this? I was far too kind.' Then she had to stop because she was crying. I think it stayed with me because it wasn't about money or decoration at all. It was proof that an ordinary job, done carefully for a long time, leaves a mark on hundreds of people. I went home and dug out my own notebook that night.