A Marriage of Strangers
Published in Great South Bay Magazine February 2005

   Loc and Kate met only on their wedding day. It was in China, 1945, in a village of Kwangtung, a province of southeast China on the South China Sea. When World War II ended Japan’s 17 years of occupation in China, the Nationalist and Communist forces resumed the civil war to fight for the control of the country. While the Communists had won hundreds of millions of people to their side, the Nationalist Party received tremendous U.S. military and financial support to fight against them. The country remained in turmoil, and floods and starvation rendered millions homeless or dead.

   The arranged marriage of Loc and Kate, 21 and 19, in the midst of the war did not resemble a traditional wedding in more prosperous times, where the bridegroom led a troop of escorts and musicians, playing happy music all the way to the bride's home, and the fancily dressed bride arrived in a red bridal sedan chair with heavy curtain carried by four coolies.

   On Kate’s wedding day, she wore a long cotton dress and a veil draping over her face, both in red. She arrived on foot at the bridegroom's home in the company of the parading troop, which included the matchmaker, twenty or so relatives, her mother and younger brother. Noisy firecrackers were set off to drive away evil spirits as she entered. By the threshold, a low flaming stove was set up; Kate listened to a male director's command and stepped over it.

   “It’s vital that you do it without fear,” her mother had told her ahead of time, “so as to avoid ill fortune in the future.”

   The house was modestly furnished, yet stunning red papers with black and gold calligraphy and a dragon-phoenix painting graced the walls. The color red was the symbol of happiness and ultimate joy and was used throughout celebrations including weddings. The dragon and phoenix design symbolized a balanced relationship. The motif was based in mythology where the dragon symbolized the Emperor, and at his side stood the magical phoenix with her life-giving song.

   Before the ceremony, Kate, unveiled, gathered in a small room with the women of her new family, her mother, and the matchmaker. Loc’s mother noticed her fatigued face. “What’s the matter, my daughter-in-law?” she asked.

   Kate timidly played with the only piece of jewelry, a jade bracelet, on her wrist, and said nothing. She looked in the direction of her two perfectly groomed sisters-in-law, clacking around in high-heeled shoes and stylish Cheongsams. They were wives of military officers, and they flaunted their gold bracelets, ruby rings and jade earrings as if they were in a competition. Kate thought of her dowry―her aunt’s five old silk pantsuits and her face turned red. She grieved that she could never be the proud bride, having impressive gifts her parents bestowed her to show-off to friends and relatives. From the matchmaker, she learned that her future husband, a teacher, was educated, and his family was once prosperous. Now she feared that her humble origin was not suitable to marry into his family.

   Loc’s mother glanced at her. Without hesitation, she took a gold ring and a gold chain with a round jade pendant off herself and put them on Kate. “My mother-in-law gave me these,” she whispered, her back to her two daughters, “on my wedding day three decades earlier. Never mind your dowry. Such tradition is not followed in this unstable time.”

   Kate nodded and dabbed her eyes with the red embroidered handkerchief in her hand.

   Later she, veiled, was led to the ancestral altar, where Loc waited. At the director's command, he knelt at the altar as Loc’s uncle murmured prayers, a custom usually performed by a father, to the Buddha to declare the groom’s adulthood and his family responsibility. The couple knelt and kowtowed thrice to Heaven and Earth, the family ancestors, Loc’s late father, his mother, and older siblings with their respective spouses. Then they bowed to each other, drank wedlock wine, and the ceremony proceeded under the director’s prompts. The guests clapped their hands to show their approval. At the feast, the newlyweds toasted with guests to pay their thanks.

   At night in their tiny bedroom, the oil lamp was well lit and the end of the dragon and phoenix candlesticks reddened. On the wall above their wooden bed were long strips of red paper, the letters for happiness and fruitfulness written in calligraphy.

   Kate sat on a chair next to the bed, muted with anxiety. The hour she had dreamed and dreaded for all her life was here. She tried to peek from the side of the veil draping over her face to look at the stranger she would spend the rest of her life with. But she could only see the edge of his suit jacket. He held her to stand up, removed the cloth from her face and lifted her chin. He looked long upon her. “Your skin is so soft and white. Your eyes so dark,” he exclaimed.

   She smiled shyly and looked up at the man standing in front of her. He was tall, about six-foot, towering over her petite frame. He had a straight nose and a well-proportioned mouth wearing a playful grin. His eyes were piercing and bright. His suit lay perfectly on his lanky frame, and his gentle demeanor made it easy to know that he must have reared properly from an early age. He put his hands on her waist; his long fingers touched circling it. “You are thin! Fragile like a weeping willow in the wind,” he said. “Not enough to eat at home?”

   “Our vegetable garden is barren. We eat mostly the roots of sweet potato plants,” she whispered, feeling the heat from his hands. The first contact with a man in her nineteen years of living made her shiver.

   “I’ll fatten you with our skinny fowls.” Laughing, he cupped her hands in his and put them close to his heart. Kate was quiet, a flood of contentment washed over her. At that instant, she saw Loc as a strong tree, a tree that could stand the fiercest of storms and yield the most delicious of fruits.

   While the thought of bearing fruits made her blush, a gentle ripple stirred inside her. She wondered how such deep feelings could be formed for the stranger she only met minutes ago. She watched the incense smolder, praying for the haven of this man’s love. Unexpectedly, the remembrance of her mother crying in the middle of the night made her flesh creep. When Kate was two, her father left as a stow-away on a cargo ship, headed for Canada. The plan was that once he reached Canada, he would sneak into the United States, make his fortune and then return home to his family in a few years. But he hadn’t yet. Thinking of her mother’s suffering, Kate almost felt guilty to be happy.

   Loc’s soft voice interrupted her reverie. He said, smiling, “The school I teach in is near your home. After I saw your photograph from the matchmaker, I peeped at you many times through the broken fence in your backyard before I agreed to marry you.”

   “Oh, that was you!” she said. “I thought it was the shadow of a thief.”

   “Now it’s your turn to approve of me.” Loc moved his head to the light and marched in front of her in an erect posture.

   Kate covered her mouth and giggled. Her voice was tiny. “Fate has brought us together,” she said, shrugging. “Do I have a choice if you are unfit to be my husband? Thank my Buddha that you don’t have a pockmarked face.”

   He placed his finger on her lips and said, “Shhhhhhh…” He touched the frog-clasps on her dress and blew out the oil lamp and the candles. “We’re bonded ‘til the end of time,” he whispered in the dark.

Author’s Note: Loc and Kate are my parents. Their marriage has yielded seven children. They were bonded for 55 years until my father’s death in 2000. It’s with affection that I write this passage, which represents the nuggets of my mother’s memory.