My First Visit To China

After some snafu's with the airline and scheduling, with an overnight lay over in Seoul, Korea, I finally arrive to my destination - Chongqing, China. My future wife was there at the airport to greet me with a huge bouquet of flowers - we knew each other right away, and I smiled - she was more lovely in person than the pictures we had exchanged did justice. She had hired a cab driver who was waiting outside for us, and wisked us away to our destination, the Chongqing Hilton.

We could have eaten western style food in the hotel, but I wanted to eat something local, so she asked, using her electronic translator, whether I liked hot food - a resounding yes, and we were on our way to partake in the dish that Chongqing has made famous, namely hot pot. As lovely as I mentioned above, she was both sweet and thoughtful, having carried along western style utensils just for me, as I had quite a time with chopsticks. Though myself a vegetarian, the restaurant was quite accommodating, serving me my half of the spicy broth in a special 2 vessel cooking pot. I was hooked at first bite, and we enjoyed partaking in hot pot numerous times during my visit.

I mentioned the translator - we both had electronic pocket translators, which initially, made the trip easier, though I wish I had learned to speak more Chinese than my first level of Pimsleur CD's. Her English language skills did surprise me though, as she had been taking lessons on her own for quite some time.

Next stop - to meet her family and friends...

A Loving Relationship Blosums...

It all started with a message from a dating site that I had long forgotten that I had left a listing. Somehow, even though some years had passed, a lady from Chongqing, China had dug through the many listings and found my profile. I almost missed the email announcing I had a message at the site through the deluge of 100's of messages I get daily. A little surprised that it had made it through my spam filters, I was curious enough to see why this person might be interested in myself, a hopelessly never married bachelor entering the prime of middle age.

What struck me first, was not her picture or profile (of which there was no picture, and little in the profile), was her simple but magical demeanor. Her command of the English language seemed to be that of an well learned scholar, but yet her expressions were somewhat lyrical, but not complex. What was in her profile, was interesting - we both disliked tatoos and body piercings, were both very interested in music and reading. She was very family oriented, another trait I was looking for in a relationship. I got the impression right away that she was someone I wanted to get to know better.

We continued forward with some short but cordial exchanges on the site, where we both eventually decided to swap real emails addresses and pictures, leaving the dating site far behind. In those messages, I continued to be amazed with her apparent command of the English language, as well as having a hard time believing her age, which was close enough to my own, given the pictures we exchanged. I was later a bit amused to find that she admitted to knowing very little English after my compliments, stating that the translation software she used through her email software was very good.

After months of exchanging emails daily, I finally decided to visit her in Chongqing....