Unbalanced Vision

The Ceremony
Where: St. James Chuch, New Malden (Read this for a very short introduction about the church.)
When: 14.00, 21 July 2007

The Reception
Where: Hall and garden, United Reformed Church
When: 21 July 2007

Its gate

Possible background for a photo?

Champagne and strawberries?

Embarrassing speeches, summer flowers and chicken on your plates?

To begin the 'How to Tie a Knot' series, I start with a composition written by my maternal grandfather. Wai-gong (Chinese for Grandpa) was a man who always chose to manage his time well. During his retirement years in LA as an expat, he wanted to improve his English effectively, and the century-long method for learning languages is to practice writing. Therefore, attending a local English composition course became one of his weekly event. One assignment was to write about a girl growing up in a small town, and here it goes:

Her name was Lushan (now Minshan). Her family and mine were in the same rural country of a small town Liling, Hunan, China. She was born in 1926 while I in 1921. Her father (1884-1955) and my father (1878-1925) were best friends, but my father lived only 47 years old while her father, whom I called uncle Yufei, lived 73. She and I never saw each other when we were young.
The first time I saw her was in 1940, three years after the outbreak of Sino-Japanese war (1937-1945), when she was 14, staying at home with her parents because her schooling was interrupted by the war. I was 19, just graduated from middle school and passed the university entrance exam. I was preparing for a trip to the school located far away in the war time capital Chongqing. My sister accompanied me to see uncle Yufei asking for a loan of 300 Yuan cash for the traveling expenses. We had cordial talk with Lushan's parents but not a single talk with her. Lushan was entirely indifferent to me.
In the university I exchanged letters with uncle Yufei. One day I got a letter from him mentioning his chat with my father long time ago intentionally to tie up the two families with possible marriage between their children. He proposed me to write letters with his daughter Nishan (her elder sister) in a college. I did what he proposed but just as with an ordinary pen pal girl friends.
In 1948 I was working in a factory in the southwest province when China had won the war over Japan for three years but still in chaos. I asked a one-month leave in the factory returning to my native home to see folks, including some girls there, and possibly get one to marry with. I did not write them any letters but only trying by chance. After a short stop in the province capital Changsha, I went to my native town to see more people, especially Nishan. I first arrived at uncle Yufei's house because it was near the railway station. When I arrived, to my disappointment, Nishan was not at home, only her younger sister Lushan was there with her parents. I was entertained to stay for a few days. Living in their guest room which was also a place of their home library staked with books and miscellaneous exercise books of children's school work. I was impressed to see some neatly written math exercise home work of Lushan. She was 23 years old at that time. I talked with her alone and found her very intelligent and lovely. She listened to my talk about my life and experiences with interest. We fell in love. We were engaged soon. One year later we married.

Grammar and syntax problems aside, this short story reminds me of the first chapter of Katherine Graham's autobiography, Personal History. She, too, began her book with a description of how her parents met amongst the madding crowd, and concluded this chapter with:

When I look back over my long life, if there is one thing that leaps out at me it is the role of luck and chance in our lives. From this particular string of accidental happenings all the rest followed. (Personal History, 4)

It is quite true.

28, and loving it

It's been almost 30 days since I turned 28, yet I still haven't written about my fabulous b-day partee. Well, it wasn't all that great. For dinner, I highly recommended this Ethiopian restaurant, Tobia, which has received all sorts of promising reviews. However, some of my friends thought the food was a bit odd--eating with fingers and sour bread--that is pushing the exotic thing a bit too far. Personally, after a lovely Ethiopian dining experience in SF years ago, I had a good impression of their cuisine (lots of lamb). Yet, despite Tobia's friendly service, decent food and amazing traditional dance/music, they showed a lack of experience in catering for a group of 18 people. There weren't enough desserts to feed every mouth, and instead, the waiter took out several large empty plates for us to share a bird-size bowl of fruit. Having said that I will still come back to Tobia, though next time with less company.

A few days later, P treated D (who is born on the same date as me) and I to an Afghanistan restaurant called the Afghan Kitchen which I was genuinely pleased with. I won't go into much detail, but here's a drink on the menu: cucumber plus yogurt--yum! Finally, HY surprised me with a Wicked performance, and also made me a true Chelski fan. However, the tee hasn't brought any good luck to the team yet... We'll find out tomorrow.

Shoreditch Town Hall

In blue

Fancier than Dorothy's

Although Christmas starts here in September, with supermarkets offering 2-for-1 mince pies, the real horror is to walk through Oxford St. three months later. The street is teeming with shoppers in different moods, in various sizes, on the other hand, the items in the shops are as generic as ever. However, it has been a trend to go on a shopping bender at local art and crafts fairs. For one, you'd be buying unique gifts unseen on the high street, and second, you'd oftentimes become face-to-face with the designer, who usually sits in his/her booth doing something extraordinary artistic such as knitting. Most importantly, the Christmas present is as much about the givee as it is about the giver. Last weekend I visited the Cockpit Arts, and left empty handed. (Creativity comes with a price.) Today I went to the East London Design Show, and found a funky scarf from here, and a weird hook from here. Ace.