Xiang Li's Wedding

A few weeks ago I made the trek back up to Harbin for my good friend and previous tutor, Xiang Li's wedding. I didn't even know she was dating someone until this fall earlier when she told me she was getting married in September! I was quite surprised but very excited for her! So, after class on Friday, I hopped on a train up to my old hometown of Harbin. That Friday night I was able to meet up with some other foreign teachers who came to China with me as well as some other foreign friends I made while teaching in Harbin. It was fun to be able to catch up with them.


Saturday morning I took my taxi to the church where the wedding took place and arrived a little early so took some time to study some of my flash cards I had brough along with me. After a bit everyone started arriving and Xiang Li and her fiance/husband showed up in their limo. (I am assuming he had already been to her house and found her hidden shoe and carried her out of the house as is tradition.) We all headed into the church and enjoyed the ceremony. It was very beautiful in the church and it was nice to be in a church. It was a very western style of wedding being in a church and with a white dress. After the ceremony we headed to the restaurant for the real party where there was a huge banquet of food and a lot of toasting. It was fun to see old friends at the wedding and be surronded by Chinese people (I was the only foreigner!). It reminded me how much I love being around Chinese people and also made me anxious to be able to speak more Chinese!


After the wedding I went with my good Chinese friend Catherine to get foot massages with my old teammate. It was fun to be with Catherine because she could translate what the massage people were saying. In China, when you get foot massages they can supposedly tell you what is wrong with you and what could be a problem health wise in the future. Of course, if you ask them what to do about it they tell you to come get massages more often! Then to top of the day I got to get together with the whole Harbin city team of teachers for dinner with Dave's parents for pizza. It was a great weekend and very full of great people!

For more pictures check out my flickr site: www. flickr.com/photos/chinamegan