A Chinese-American Wedding in Bethany

About a week ago I mentioned Jorie and Gavin Zhao. They are a Chinese couple who ate dinner at our house last Sunday and Laurena taught them how to fry chicken a la Oklahoman. Today we went to their wedding. Except that they got married in China between semesters and then came back to SNU so Jorie could start her MBA studies. So, why another wedding? They have made so many friends in the U.S. that they wanted to share a U.S. wedding with them. So we got to share in their wedding today.

The wedding was a small and very touching ceremony held in a church's chapel. Gavin and Jorie wore simple, but elegant, Chinese clothing. Gavin and Jorie walked down separate aisles to join each other at the front. A young girl accompanied Gavin down the aisle and a young boy accompanied Jorie down the aisle. The boy and girl represented their family and friends. During the ceremony, a young American woman who grew up in China sang a love song in Chinese. Afterwards, there was a reception with typical American light snacks, weak punch and big wedding cake.

During the reception, we sat at a table where a young American woman, not the woman who sang, carried on a conversation in Chinese with a young Chinese woman. I looked around the room and realized that it included quite a mixture of international students from a variety of European countries as well as from Latina America and China. I stopped by one of the tables and spoke in Spanish to a couple of students from Honduras. My state of Oklahoma has changed a lot over the years. When I was in college some 30+ years ago, it would have been very unusual for a small university in the middle of Oklahoma to include such a fantastic mix of ethnic, linguistic and national backgrounds. Now, it's something we take for granted.

Something else interesting...Last week I learned that Jorie's undergraduate degree is in Chinese-English interpreting. She may have something of value to share with the students in our translation program. We'll have to check on that.