August 1, 2004

I got married in China!

I got married this past Monday, July 26. Married! There was no fanfare, no regale, no fancy dress…just John, me and the Chinese officials. And, to be honest, I still awake each day and marvel in the surprise of it all – perhaps just as much as you do.

You can’t blame me for being surprised either. In the beginning, I had my doubts as to whether our matrimony could go forward at all. The US Consulate’s info about marriage in China is sobering – especially this portion about Chinese students:

Chinese students generally are permitted to marry if all the requirements are met, but they can expect to be expelled from school as soon as they do. American citizens wishing to marry Chinese students should bear this in mind. It also should be noted that at least one school in Beijing has required Chinese students to reimburse the school for hitherto uncharged tuition and other expenses upon withdrawal from school to marry foreigners. The fees in one case amounted to about 4,700 yuan per year of study completed, and the school would not release documents the student needed to register the marriage until the fees were paid. Some work units have also demanded compensation for "lost services."

John is still a graduate student. Would the officials disdainfully gloss over his materials and then claim him unfit for marriage? Or worse, would they contact his school to discuss the reprobate behavior of their student?

John, however, had called the marriage registration office and inquired about our situation – and they assured him that there would be no difficulty for us to go ahead. And he also reminded me of the revised marriage laws. In effect since October 1, 2003, the new legislation stated that an individual no longer required the approval of their work or school unit to enter into this blissful union of two.

I still had a few lingering uncertainties that morning of July 26, when we set out to the office.

So you can guess my reaction when I discovered that this wing of Chinese bureaucracy was an explosion of wedding dresses, party favors and more than a few red hearts. In some respects, it resembled a Disneyland wedding pavilion, right down to the cheerful (and even at times obsequious) staff members. A “marriage ride”. They told us how to pose and where to stand, lent us some flowers and took more pictures than my shutter-happy uncle (including one by the very quintessentially Chinese “double happiness” background). And, like most rides at the amusement park, they offered the pictures up for souvenirs (how could we refuse?).

I have to give credit to the Chinese government. They’ve turned marriage registration into one heck of a moneymaking proposition. ;-)

All revenues aside, it was downright civilized and respectful of the individual. And none of the hassle or horror described on the US Consulate’s website. It made me wonder, why indeed does the US Consulate still have such a fear-mongering slant on marriage in China, well after the reformed marriage laws that went into effect on October 1, 2003?

While I can only venture a guess into that, I will say I’m pleased to no end that the marriage went smoothly.

Oddly enough, this is only the beginning of our matrimonial vows. We’ll be organizing two more ceremonies for our respective home countries. If things go as planned, we may not finish saying “I do” until the summer of 2006!

And that’s not the only peculiarity about our marriage. It occurred to me that perhaps we went “backwards” in a way. After all, isn’t it the planning of the event that generally precedes all of the paperwork?

Well, we had reason for that. Originally, we’d thought about registering our marriage after John graduated. Later, John suggested that it wouldn’t bode well for him if, just a month or two after marriage, he went to the US Consulate for a visa. We figured having been husband and wife for a year would appear a little less impetuous. And it would give us plenty of time to do the rest of the work that will give John a better “profile”, including sharing finances and perhaps even purchasing an apartment.

John has yet to tell any of his classmates. I expect he won’t, save those few close individuals who have his trust. Despite the new, open policy, there still lurk killjoys within those hallowed halls of his school who take extraordinary pleasure in controlling students. If his dean could refuse to put a stamp of approval on our Thailand trip (which we went ahead with anyway), who knows what he would think of the “indecency” of marriage with a foreign woman?

I went on a business trip to Nanjing this week, a city I knew well through my close friendship with Eric, a graduate of Southeast University. His enduring support hit a chord with me during my “IN-SHP Days” (a time that I’ve described as my worst China experience).

I walked through the stately grounds of this fine university once again, reflecting on days past and the tremendous changes in my life in the past three years. I saw the foreign expert’s building and remembered all of my desperate hidden passions for him, and then subsequent abatement of my feelings when they found no shelter within his soul. During my last visit to Nanjing in summer of 2002, I was grappling with Frank’s reticence and isolation from me. That university witnessed me in the midst of mistaken love and all of the tender misunderstandings that happen when a relationship wasn’t meant to be. And not long after Eric and I bid farewell that summer of 2002, I met John and found a welcoming from every heartbreak I’d known before.

Somehow, Southeast University felt like alien terrain to me now. I watched yearning couples softly cooing to one another in the gentle evening and adolescent passions brewing on the track and field area…and I just didn’t belong there any more. It’s not that I no longer understand their hearts. I guess I have just discovered the bliss that comes from the promise of love for a lifetime. And that’s something that not even the greatest celebration or feast could begin to encapsulate.