i was sitting in the food court in the commons one day, waiting for 11am to arrive when i have to go to work... i decided to take out my sparkly grape pen and jot down some random thoughts into my little starry diary, since i haven't really touched it for a week or so. as i was rambling along, as I usually do, i thought about a question that I always had in mind...and never got a satisfying answer for it, even though dad tried to answer the question for me a few times way way back when I was in taiwan.

is it considered lying when someone only tells half of the story and never really fill in the other half (assuming that he/she knows the whole story)?

my chinese teacher in middle school who also happened to be the staff who does the registering of incoming and outgoing students in the school told me that i lied to her when i told her that I am transferring out to another school. I didn't tell her where I was going (because mom and dad didn't want them to know that I am coming to the states) but I asked her if she could give me the paper work to show that I had the 7th grade education in taiwan. she was really mad at me of not telling her where i was going until the very very end. i didn't sign up for the summer school that year because i was coming here and mom had a surgery right before the summer came that she had to wear a neck support for half an year or so. i had to help mom out wherever she goes because she couldn't really turn her neck. my chinese teacher said that i lied to her that i am not going to the summer school because of mom's surgery (which was partially true) instead of telling her that i am coming here... dad tried to cheer me up by saying that it doesn't necessarily mean that I lied just because i told her half of the story instead of the whole. i took dad's words for my justification...until last year, that same dillema (well, not exactly the same...it is with a friend instead of with a teacher) came back to me again. i don't think my choice (if I had any) would make any difference. it was a friend who told me that i lied to him... it never occur to me again that not telling the whole story is equivalent to a "lie" until then. he was frustrated at the fact that i didn't tell him earlier of what I had felt for him until he got a girlfriend. hmmm... but it was at that time that i realized what i thought was is not real. i didn't want to say anything because i was unsure of myself until then. i am not sure... he said i was way too indirect... i don't know. but anyhow... i still consider him to be my friend even though we don't talk anymore. at least, we got to share a lot of our thoughts together and learn from one another.

why would someone want to tell only the partial story? because of uncertainty? because of fear that telling the whole story would make things more complicated? (i know that for sure, especially with public people...or people with higher social status) but when that partial story is told truthfully, then that part is not a lie. is there a way to tell that partial story so skillfully that nobody will know there is a second part to it?

so when is a statement consider to be a lie?