I'm back again from visiting my lady in Guangdong for the second time. We had 16 wonderful days and nights together. Home alone in my apartment again the emptiness feels massive. We won't meet again until December in Sweden.
Our plan was to get engaged in Foshan and have an engagement dinner together with my mother and her family. We cruised Guangzhou, Foshan and Kunming for engagement rings but could not find any we both liked. Here the cultural differences became apparent. I took for granted that it was basically the same tradition in China as in Sweden and so did she. We were both wrong. In Sweden, like in many Western countries I would guess, the engagement rings look alike. They're usually in red or white gold (I prefer both) and with no diamonds. The wedding ring is another matter. In China most rings had diamonds (I told my lady that as a man I simply can't wear a diamond ring!) and they looked rather cheap. So we'll wait and buy the rings in Sweden in December instead. Her parents were obviously disappointed, but my lady stood firm.
Communicating in Chinese becomes easier and easier, it seems my Chinese studies pays off bit by bit. It
will take much more studies to be able to speak more fluent Chinese though. I was very happy my lady was in charge of ordering the food, otherwise the meals would have been rather dull after a week or so...
I've had some concerns about the physical part of the relationship since my lady is traditional and has said that she wants to wait with sex until after the wedding. This was hard for me to accept. I would finally have accepted it since I love her. Therefore going to China I did not expect anything at all. It turned out I was mistaken since she was ready to go already the first night. I was rather shocked (in a positive way). Where had this shy and traditional lady gone? Now I know what I first suspected: she wanted to make sure we were for real. Making arrangements to get engaged was obviously proof enough of my love for her.
Except all the rain and that my iPhone was stolen by a taxi driver (I left it in the back seat and when my lady called and begged him to return to the airport with my phone he said there was no phone in the car. After that my phone was quickly switched off) we had an amazing time.
Guangzhou feels like a rather chaotic city. The traffic is catastrophic, it's painful to watch ambulances being stuck for ages. The underground is both cheap and comfortable, like in Beijing and Shanghai, but the distances often makes is meaningsless to take te underground anyway. I liked Foshan and Kunming better, probably because of their size. Neither of them have an underground but it's not as time consuming to get around.
Looking for a Chinese woman is probably the best decision I've ever made. I've had doubts, fears and questioned the odds of success many times. Not any more. For the first time I feel 100 per cent sure she is the one for me. We'll have many practical issues to deal with in the future for sure, but I'm sure we can overcome them together. My Wenjun is empathetic, cute, funny, caring, and yet firm. She does not take any crap from restaurants or anyone else, which I like. I hope many, many other men will experience what I and many of you guys here have been fortunate to experience. Nothing else matters.
Hopefully: engagement in December, wedding in August next year (first in China, then in Sweden).
