June 27, 2007
My brother's wedding
- Alive Not Dead archive
I have alot of catch up to do blog-wise, but I wanted to get the most important (well, important to me, at least) item posted first – my oldest brother David just recently got married and I attended the wedding ceremony last weekend.
My brother moved up to Portland, Oregon four years ago to escape the cut-throat, killer hours lifestyle of lawyers in the San Francisco Bay Area.
A beautiful Oregon sunset
In line with this love of nature, David and his new wife Hilary got married down the Oregon coast in the sleepy seaside town of Newport. The marriage was interesting to say the least -- I'm used to mixed marriages in my family since almost all of my 17 female cousins have married white men, but this was the first male marriage in my family to non-Chinese.
Mr. and Mrs. David and Hilary Wang
In fact, Hilary Williams (now Hilary Wang) is a direct descendent of John Alden and Priscilla Mullens of the Plymouth Colony. That's right, David and Hilary's kids will be 16th generation American. In fact, Hilary's historical American family has a tradition of reading a famous romantic poem by Longfellow written about her ancestors, "The Courtship of Miles Standish":
From Wikipedia:
The Courtship of Miles Standish is an 1858 narrative poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow about the early days of Plymouth Colony,
the colonial settlement established in America by the Mayflower
Pilgrims. Set against the backdrop of a fierce Indian war, the tale
focuses on a love-triangle between three Pilgrims, Miles Standish,Priscilla Mullens, and John Alden.
... The Pilgrims grimly battle against disease and Indians, but are also obsessed with an eccentric love-triangle, creating a curious mix of drama and comedy. Two bumbling, feuding roommates, Miles Standish and John Alden, vie for the affections of the beautiful Priscilla Mullins, who slyly tweaks the noses of her undiplomatic suitors. The independent-minded woman utters one of the most famous retorts ever. The saga has a surprise ending, one full of optimism for the American future.
...Miles Standish and John Alden were likely roommates3; Priscilla Mullins was the only single woman of marriageable age4. The families of the alleged lovers remained close for several generations, moving together to Duxbury, Massachusetts, in the late 1620's5. Descendants still retell the love-triangle of their ancestors.
She did all of this without being able to speak Chinese (at least at the beginning of the trip) and without any tour guides getting by with the good graces of the locals and alot of drawing of pictograms. Her reasoning: She was afraid that her Alzheimer's might be getting more acute so she wanted to challenge her mental capabilities with the most difficult adventure she could imagine.... The Pilgrims grimly battle against disease and Indians, but are also obsessed with an eccentric love-triangle, creating a curious mix of drama and comedy. Two bumbling, feuding roommates, Miles Standish and John Alden, vie for the affections of the beautiful Priscilla Mullins, who slyly tweaks the noses of her undiplomatic suitors. The independent-minded woman utters one of the most famous retorts ever. The saga has a surprise ending, one full of optimism for the American future.
...Miles Standish and John Alden were likely roommates3; Priscilla Mullins was the only single woman of marriageable age4. The families of the alleged lovers remained close for several generations, moving together to Duxbury, Massachusetts, in the late 1620's5. Descendants still retell the love-triangle of their ancestors.
In any case, it's certainly an interesting family that we're gotten married to. I'm happy to say that the ceremony went off without a hitch and that the two families seem to get along together very well.
The Williams-Alden Clan
And the older generation of the Wang-Chang clan
Hilary is the middle of three sisters. Her parents are noted Middle East scholars and she mostly grew up in Egypt and remembers her childhood as visiting one too many mosques with her parents. After college, she moved to Taiwan for a year to teach English and then did two years in Thailand as a Peace Corps volunteer. She met David two years ago while helping their mutual friends move houses.
Oh... Hilary has decided to take our last name "Wang". It was a decision she had made many years ago because she said she was always sick of having such a common last name ("Williams"). What she didn't realize back then was that she'd get married to an even MORE common last name -- albeit she'll be getting some strange expressions at the DMV for having the last name "Wang" and blonde hair.
Check out all of the rest of the pics from the wedding weekend:
In any case, the most interesting conversation I had that weekend was with Hilary's adventurous, larger-than-life aunt (and namesake) Aunt Hilary, now 79 years old. After hearing about my travelling adventures around China, she told me that she spent two months last year in China travelling around herself ... alone by herself... and to much more remote and numerous destinations than me: Qinghai, Xinjiang, Yunnan, Harbin, and more...
The Williams-Alden Clan
And the older generation of the Wang-Chang clan
Hilary is the middle of three sisters. Her parents are noted Middle East scholars and she mostly grew up in Egypt and remembers her childhood as visiting one too many mosques with her parents. After college, she moved to Taiwan for a year to teach English and then did two years in Thailand as a Peace Corps volunteer. She met David two years ago while helping their mutual friends move houses.
Oh... Hilary has decided to take our last name "Wang". It was a decision she had made many years ago because she said she was always sick of having such a common last name ("Williams"). What she didn't realize back then was that she'd get married to an even MORE common last name -- albeit she'll be getting some strange expressions at the DMV for having the last name "Wang" and blonde hair.
Check out all of the rest of the pics from the wedding weekend:
In any case, the most interesting conversation I had that weekend was with Hilary's adventurous, larger-than-life aunt (and namesake) Aunt Hilary, now 79 years old. After hearing about my travelling adventures around China, she told me that she spent two months last year in China travelling around herself ... alone by herself... and to much more remote and numerous destinations than me: Qinghai, Xinjiang, Yunnan, Harbin, and more...
Wow, I don't feel impressed with my time in China anymore. She has more guts than I do by many times.
In any case, I just uploaded a huge backlog of photos from the past half year which you can view in my photo albums or you can wait for the coming days when I begin actually writing some blog posts about what's been going on.