One great wedding and a giant panda sanctuary

Apologies for the lack of blog updates. Work has continued to be busy which in turn has limited my adventures and therefore blog-worthy content. However, two weeks ago, I visited Sichuan Province to attend my friends’ wedding.

I worked with Omar and Lyra in Beijing for two years and they recently transferred schools; moving to her hometown in Chongqing.

The wedding took place on October 1st, which is during China’s national holiday. I was given the great honour of being asked to host the wedding alongside a Chinese host. The wedding ceremony itself reflected the coming together of Eastern and Western cultures.

I have been lucky to attend weddings in the UK, Poland, Vietnam and now China. All of the wedding ceremonies were completely different but all had the common theme of celebrating love and union.



I particularly enjoyed how the wedding day began. After a photo shoot, the groom followed Chinese tradition and visited the bride’s residence. There, he had to persuade her bridesmaids to allow him inside the hotel room through giving them red envelopes containing money (红包 hóngbāo). Nothing says love like bribery. Once he gained access to the room, the Omar had to complete a set of dares (with the help of his friends and family).

The first dare required him to choose cards that listed an exercise and the number of times he had to partake in that exercise. After doing the plank and squats, Omar had to finish one hundred push-ups. Unfortunately, despite already being sweaty from the humidity, I had to pitch in and did my set of ten (while hoping that the sweat patches faded before the ceremony began).



Next, the groom had to play a game similar to roulette. A number of cups were filled with different liquids, which included soy sauce, orange juice, vinegar and bai jiu (Chinese rice wine). This was to reflect the different tastes of marriage (sweet and sour etc). Again, the groom called on his friends for help. I think I drank the soy sauce. I then innocently asked for a biscuit chaser. After eating the Oreo, I realised it was wasabi flavoured. Rookie mistake. These games certainly created a happy and fun atmosphere.

Finally, the groom had to say “I love you” to the bride in 3 languages. He then ascended the stairs and met his bride-to-be.

I was rather nervous when reading the speech. I didn’t want to make any mistakes or ruin the ceremony. The speech included vows written by the bride and groom and also explained the order of the ceremony to the English and Chinese speaking guests. It was a wonderful, emotional-yet-happy ceremony and one that I will always remember.




After the ceremony, I felt that I could finally relax and along with the other guests, enjoyed a hearty lunch. Shortly after the meal, the newlyweds had their first dance. Later in the afternoon it began to rain, so many of the guests went into the hotel and played mahjong (麻将).



In the evening, some of us went to KTV (karaoke), which was the perfect end to a magical day.





The day after the wedding, we travelled to Chengdu – the home of the panda. It was quite a long bus journey; however, it was definitely worth it. The Panda sanctuary was very busy - probably due to it being the national holiday. Despite this, it was a great experience to see the giant panda and red panda. The giant pandas are really quite big, although I still secretly hoped that I would encounter an actual giant-sized panda roaming around. My personal highlight of the day was seeing the baby pandas. The word "cute" cannot fully describe them accurately. Even the way one of the baby bears happily excreted on one of the carers was adorable.



Although it was a fleeting visit to Sichuan Province, it was an unforgettable holiday and I sincerely hope that I will make a return trip there someday in the future.



Đầu tháng này, tôi tham dự đám cưới của bạn tôi ở Trùng Khánh. Đó là một ngày rất đặc biệt.

Ngày kế tiếp tôi đã đi Thành Đô. Tôi đã thấy rất nhiều gấu trúc. Bây giờ gấu trúc là một loài thú hiếm.