An airport surprise, the ring and TEFL

Ben came back safely on Sunday! I did the most romantic thing that I’ve ever done – without him knowing, I went to the airport to pick him up (although the vehicle was the National Railways…)! As I said before I’m the least romantic human being I know. When I went to Guangzhou to see Ben, he dressed up in suit (Can you imagine? Ben in a SUIT! And a TIE!) in 30°C weather and came to the airport with a bunch of blue roses. Any female living thing should be touched to tears but all I was thinking was, aren’t you hot? Why flowers? I’m hungry…

a sample picture of Ben in suit

    I felt SO bad afterwards. But on Sunday I played the art of romanticism well! I didn’t tell him of course, and I had so little information. All I knew was he was flying from somewhere in France in the afternoon, by easyJet to Gatwick. I got the list of all the arrival flights into Gatwick that afternoon and all the destinations easyJet flies to in France and match-made them. Then I targeted six flights and waited at the corresponding terminals from 15:30. Ben called me at 17:13 and had no idea I was sitting in the Costa opposite to his exit holding a packet of Jelly babies. Great success! ^^

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    We went ring-hunting yesterday at H.Samuel’s. It seems like a popular ring because 2 out of 3 shops we went to (in Guildford and London) were out of stock. But anyway I managed to come back with a ringed finger in the end~

the last time my left fist without a ring in public

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    After coming home we started properly looking at TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) courses. We both enrolled and will start studying again today. The real world again! Fighting!

“Four Weddings”, family trees and anniversaries

Nicola suggested me watching “Four Weddings” to have a boost of wedding ideas since I hardly have any due to lack of experience ^^. It is about four brides-to-be going to each other’s weddings and rating them; the one who gets the highest score wins a deluxe honeymoon to a wonderland with sunshine+beach 24/7. I admit for the first half an hour I thought it was a hideous programme. I thought some of their “dream wedding” plans to be very bizarre – I don’t want to be dressed like a cucumber or vampire for my wedding! But what touched me were the brides’ feelings towards their big days and their Mr Rights, especially the ones who lost. Every one of them thought THEIR wedding was the best and the most perfect, however wrong it might seem to other people. I really like that attitude, and that spirit has taken some pressure off me. I used to treat the wedding almost like a piece of coursework, but now I see the difference: the coursework can go wrong and receive a low mark; a wedding is always gonna end up well for two people who truly love each other.

    Nicola also asked me to make a family tree in order to have a clearer idea of who is who in my family just in case they all come to the wedding and there happens to be a Chinese delivery man there. I really, really enjoyed this job! I had never made a family tree before because there are not many of them and my memory hasn’t gone bad yet. But when I was making it I felt how people are connected to each other and 2 people’s love can create a miracle. I became addicted and made Ben’s family tree too. I’m going to combine them 2 and make it into a poster and put it on our walls in the future, so our children will constantly be reminded how miraculous they are~

    I went to a couple of wedding anniversaries in the past few weeks (including Andrew and Nicola’s of course) and there is nothing more pleasant, before Ben and I get married, to see strong couples one pair after another celebrating their lives together. My parents reached their silver as well 2 years ago, although it is not my family’s tradition to throw a party about it (I think we really should), the love between them is growing grander and grander every day. It may be true that the divorce rate has rocketed, but let’s not be affected by that. I think a marriage means 2 people love, stay and help each other through thick and thin for the rest of their lives. As long as we have faith in that, we will always be fine whatever waits for us ahead.

my parents on their wedding day

in their silver year

Nicola & Andrew at their silver anniversary party

^^

A roller-coaster letter & a girls’ night-out

My dad emailed me a long letter the day before yesterday which made my heart sink and bounce back. Don’t worry, he didn’t order me to go back to China for an arranged marriage or anything. Quite the opposite, he expressed his enthusiasm to my wedding and gave me a lot of advice (which added a “little” bit of pressure to my plan).

    The night before Nicola and I were briefly adding the number of people Ben and I would like to invite, and we reached 72 without even trying. That means, if I still want the wedding to take place in the Liphook Church, we either have to lose 2 stones each or sit on each other’s laps for the service… I was only expecting 6-8 people from my family to come, buy my dad asked me to invite 20! I’d love them all to be able to make it of course, but that also means a bigger venue, more hotel rooms and more entertaining programmes to be organised on the England side; for many of them that may be their one and only trip to England, and I don’t want to let them down.

    But let’s look at the wonderful side of it! Like Nicola said, it shows how much my family loves me and they are all willing to fly out in winter to celebrate with me! And my dad is SO open-minded that he doesn’t interfere with my marriage at all (although he was quite worried when I told him I was going out with a long-haired English guy, he was picturing Manchurian zombies at one point). All he wants is just everybody to be happy! I have to say this is a rather rare characteristics of Chinese parents and I’m so proud that I have a dad like him. ^^

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Last night I went to visit Nicola’s parents with her. Maybe it’s because of the “Hong Kong bond” (well Shanghai is not far from Hong Kong and our people look very much alike) or their really bubbly character, I started to like them the first time I met them. I’m very excited that they’re going to be my grandparents-in-law. And and and, I got to enjoy one of the very few chances that we girls out-numbered boys! There were a lot of woos and ows and giggles and planning and dreaming accompanied by delicious Chinese food ordered by Brian and Judy, and Brian with his whisky~

    And I also learnt that the groom is not allowed to know anything about the bride’s wedding dress until he sees her in the church! Oops I already put the picture of my “dream dress” all over the place (my Chinese blog can be accessed from 3 places)… Need to take them down before he comes back.

A wedding dress coincidence!

Ben finally contacted me! Yeah yeah he’s as safe and bouncy as a cucumber! I’m so so relieved! During the past almost 48 hours I had my phone with me wherever I went, even to the loo, just in case he called. Apparently his phone doesn’t work in France; he did try to text me but it didn’t come through, so he borrowed Tom’s (his Si-fu) phone and called me. Oh Ben you really need to work harder, both in Kung-Fu and in your mobile’s signalbility! ^^

    According to the plan I went to London yesterday. As I was walking to the station I felt less and less depressed. It was such a nice day! For the past year I was only concerned to get to the station on time so I wouldn’t miss the train to uni, but totally ignored such beautiful scenery! And at that time Ben called me, which made my mood completely trampoline back!

    Since I don’t really have any idea how my wedding should look like, Nicola suggested me buying some wedding magazines. So these are what I got from yesterday’s shopping (which was the first fortune I spent for our wedding. Ben still hasn’t bought me the ring yet, haha):

    I started to have some ideas of what I want my wedding and reception to look like by going through these with Nicola (and she was having SO much fun!). I have decided that I want a “Christmas wedding with Chinese characteristics”. We two cultures share the same festive colours red and gold, so I can fully use them to decorate the church and the marquee. How does that sound?

    I even singled out the blueprint for my wedding dress! The spooky thing was it looked so similar to Nicola’s one from 25 years ago! Proves it really is a timeless classic style. When I saw her wedding photo I had geese-lumps all over me…

    By the way I was only doing magazine-limited window-shopping to get ideas. I wasn’t paid by this Justin Alexander guy to advertise his dresses (actually I have no idea who he is and not a clue what this dress costs), I just think it looks gorgeous, maybe better with gloves in winter. Oh oh and Nicola and I both like high collars, what a coincidence! For further details of this dress and a 360° enlarged look please click here (the link is tested upon posting).

    The Korean food I had for supper was lovely, and I didn’t have to pay! It was my friend’s treat. ^^ The restaurant (called “Kimchee”←please click for more details if you’re interested, link tested upon posting) is in Holborn. I highly recommend it! My friend’s boyfriend works there (that’s also one of the reasons I’m encouraging you to go).

    If you are interested in my Chinese blog please click here~

A delayed hangover…

Ben hasn’t contacted me since he left the house at 14:30 on Saturday. I thought he would’ve given me a call or text as soon as he arrived in France, and no news the whole day today. I’ve tried his mobile at least 10 times but it’s always switched off. I admit I became a little paranoid today and checked the news. Nicola said if there was anything bad happening we would’ve known it by now, and I agree. So he is safe, just stuck in a signal-free area, doing “chippoty-chops” (according to Abi), and hopefully missing me terribly as I do to him, and trying everything to let me know he’s safe.

    I’ve been thinking about this for a while, I know it might sound a bit nasty: which is more important to him, Kung-Fu or me? I don’t know if it’s all human being or just me but I find myself becoming greedier and greedier and I don’t like that at all. About a year and a half ago, he said he thought me as important as his family and Kung-Fu which made me feel so honoured and think I’d want nothing more. But to be honest all I’m thinking now is, we just got engaged! How can you just “ditch” me and go on a week-long trip where you can’t even make phone calls?!

    It’s good that I let it out. The guilt of having that thought bothers me. I’d always kept this just between the 2 of us. When he was doing the year-abroad in China he made frequent trips to Hong Kong to practise Kung-Fu. There he had to use a different mobile number and it wasn’t very easy for him to top-up when he was staying with his Si-going’s family, let alone he couldn’t keep his phone with him when he was training. Because of both of our bad internet connection, phone calls were the only way for us to communicate with each other in that long-distance relationship. LDs are hard, it’s like if my parents in China can’t get hold of me after trying for more than 24 hours, they’ll start to worry. Same for Nicola and Andrew with Ben. When that kind of things happen too often, I get upset, although I’m trying hard not to be.

    About six months ago, we briefly talked about the suitable time to get engaged. He said he wasn’t ready yet because he thought I still put my dad before him. I was shocked. I’m my dad’s only child and he is my hero and my role model. I agreed that after getting married the wife should regard her husband as the most important man of her life, but I didn’t think that should be the condition for a man to decide if he wants to marry a woman. He said as long as he didn’t feel that I put him before my dad, he wouldn’t think he was ready to marry me. And I said how can I put you before my dad when we’re not married? We had a tearful argument and at that moment I really didn’t know how to continue our relationship.

    But we never thought of giving it up, never ever. There were times we argued every day and got each other really, really angry. He’d slam the door and I’d say horrible things, but after cooling down we’d always have a nice, long talk to straight things out. Friends and families might think we know each other’s languages very well and have been lived together for almost a year, so there shouldn’t be any significant cultural differences; that was what I thought too. But as we argued more and more and the rose-tintedness started to fade away, we started to find out the unavoidable disparities from religion to food, concepts of filial piety to the ways of bring up children and so on. We have realised that those differences are always going to be there; we cannot ignore them. Compromise has to be done through understanding and negotiation.

    I feel a lot better now, letting all these things out. Nicola just came in to say good night and I need to head for bed too. I’m going to London tomorrow to get some fresh air, and have dinner with a friend from uni. Just seven more days to wait and I’ll be fine.

    Sleep tight~

P.S. Maybe the “Kung-Fu or me” question I wondered earlier is just like where I should place my dad in relation to Ben now. We’re not married yet so he might take this as his last opportunity to pursue his dreams freely (but could you please do it somewhere with signal next time?). I understand and support that.

Need to start proper planning now!

This is my first blog in English and I hope it’s going to be a start of many, many more.

    To be honest I don’t even know where to start now. I finished university on Thursday, got engaged on Friday and turned 180° in 24 hours from being buried in essays and exams to preparing a wedding which is in just over seven months! I am the least romantic person I know. It’s a bizastrous miracle that as a fully-biologically functioning woman, I hardly ever imagined about my wedding day. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not that Ben has put me off or anything. My idea was very simple: I love Ben very much and I know he loves me very much too, so our wedding is just going to be a celebration of our love, hosted by his dad and attended by our close families and friends in the church.

    I still think that is a lovely idea, but I do live in the real world, not the Happy and Rose-tinted Wonderland of Ben-Ben & Miki, so I have to get practical. “Life is hard, so be happy!” – a quote from a Japanese film.

 

    Now I have to start making sense. Where shoud I start? The proposal? Although I have a blank planner for the wedding, I did have quite specific requirements for the proposal. I asked Ben to first, talk to Andrew and Nicola about it; secondly, do it when there are just 2 of us; thirdly, surprise me; fourthly, record it. My mind was stuck in my dissertation which was the analysis of the proposal scenes in Downton Abbey when I made these requirements. As I got sick of it, I began to give up on the recording bit.

    When the real thing happened, he really took me off-guard. I decide to keep the details just between the 2 of us but I can tell you that he did fulfil all my 3 wishes! And it was filled with tears, hugs, laughters, kisses and yeses. After that I happily trotted to his room to look at the images of the 3 rings he was interested in but couldn’t decide which one to give to me, so I had a precious chance to choose my own engagement ring:

    It still feels surreal to us that we’re engaged! I’m an engaged woman now! I’m Ben’s fiancée now! Unless I get that idea properly digested I’ll ever be able to talk sense.

Ok the wedding, when is it gonna be? After a few discussions with our families we decided to start our life as one on Friday, 28th December 2012. I apologise to those heat-lovers, because Ben and I are planning to go to China in August but would very much like to come back for Christmas every year (we don’t celebrate Christmas in China properly; all we do is just putting pictures of Santa with his coke all over windows…), we have decided to set the date then. However in May next year in Shanghai we’ll have another reception hosted by my parents. Ben and I want to set the date on Saturday, 4th May 2013, so that the “force” can be with us, haha~

    What else what else? Oh, the venue. We want to get married in the church in Liphook, and we’d like Andrew to do the wedding and Ben’s Godfather Howard to do the mass. And after Nicola and Andrew’s Silver (aka Brian and Judy’s Golden) Anniversary party, I’d love to have our wedding reception in a heated marquee in the garden too! But there are a million other things to think about, from the size of the marquee to the style of the food; from the format of the reception to the transport from the church… Ah! Come back from France, Ben!!!

    About my family, my parents are definitely coming. I have also asked one of my best friends from high school in China to be my maid of honour and she’s also agreed to come. My dad said he’d give me the number on Monday and my mum said it’d be about 6-8 people, including my parents. We have exchanged a couple of emails already, and I’ll start building an archive from now on.

My main concerns are the cultural differences, the language barrier and the difficulty to make everybody happy. Ben and I will be in China during the crucial preparation stage of the wedding which makes it even harder to organise. Nicola kindly warned me that however prepared we are, at least one thing is bound to go wrong at the wedding or reception. If I’m ready for that now, I can take it a lot easier and panic less on the day.

    I don’t know what else to write about at this stage. I’m still in shock of the sudden change of my status. There’s no news from Ben in France yet, and that makes me even more anxious. He’s not coming back until next Sunday, and we need to start looking for jobs asap then. A lot to do a lot to do!

    Oh oh one last thing today, I ironed my first shirt yesterday under Nicola’s help! It was the first time that I discovered the “yoke” of a shirt! I got it confused with the word “yurt” for a while. I hardly wear shirts myself; a qualified double-idiot in both fashion and housework like me is far away from a suitable wife, and the next seven months will see the intensive training of me marching towards that species, I hope.

    Will come back to report soon, and I’m going to re-write all the above in Chinese now…