We enjoyed a fascinating ‘Remarkable Lives’ interview today when we met Yee Tak, born and raised in Hong Kong before she met and married a British college principal, and moved to England. The couple married in Honk Kong, in the years after the handover to Chinese rule, in a marriage ceremony reflecting both Chinese, and western, wedding traditions.
“James wanted a traditional western ‘Stag Night’ celebration, out clubbing with friends in Hong Kong nightclubs,” explained Yee Tak, “But he paid a price the next day. Chinese tradition required him to collect me from my home, to take me away for the wedding. That isn’t as easy as he imagined it to be.”
Arriving at his bride-to-be’s home, James found Yee Tak’s family and friends barring his way, and demanding he perform tasks to prove his worthiness to marry her. “In Chinese culture there are wedding rituals that must be followed,” said Yee Tak. “James had to compose a love poem to me, from random words picked out of a hat, then eat the hottest wasabi sauce imaginable before performing push-up exercises in front of everyone… and, of course, he had to hand over a sum of money to my friends before they’d let him see me.”
The money, naturally, had to reflect the lucky influence of the number ‘nine’, but James’s first offering of nine Hong Kong dollars did not fit the bill. “My friends demanded a lot more ‘number nines’ than that,” laughed Yee Tak. “In the end he had to have a whip round among his friends for cash, and finally hand over the local currency equivalent of around £900. I think the fact we’ve been happy together, for all the years since, means that he thinks I was worth it.”
And that love poem which wannabee bridegroom James composed, from randomly selected words, mixing east and west; with Chinese food, and the names of English football teams?
“You can have my last crumb of everlasting dim sum
Drink from my chalice, in my Crystal Palace…”
OK… Wordsworth, it’s not… but Yee Tak, who was listening from behind closed doors as her fiancé struggled with his literary task, still cherishes it to this day.
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