Pre-Engagement Lunch

It's not every day you find yourself awake before 7:00AM on a Saturday morning, slicing up black duck eggs to be be presented on six plates of cold-cuts in a house decorated with pink-and-white streamers.



Today marks Tung's and my pre-engagement lunch--or, at least, what started out as a lunch that morphed into a mini-ceremony. The house has been cleaned almost to the point of non-recognition, with fresh flowers and a tea set displayed on the coffee table, awaiting the arrival of family on both sides.




Here's what was initially planned: According to the tradition of pre-arranged marriages (which I stress, was NOT the case with Tung and me), the groom's side of the family doesn't see the bride until the day of the pre-engagement when arrangements are made to further the nuptial agreements. Therefore, I am to remain in my room until called out to serve tea. Some time during my conversation with them the night before, my parents and I came to the agreement that this was too archaic, but we never really established a game plan for my entrance. So this was what happened instead: Naturally, everyone shows up super-early, and after a morning of food preparations and light cleaning, I am putting on make-up in my room when the guests arrive, bearing traditional gifts of tea and wine wrapped in festive, red cellophane.



Introductions are made on both sides of Tung's family and mine, and then the tea gets poured. Nobody comes in to get me, so I timidly enter the hallway to greet the guests, who are of course too engrossed in conversation to acknowledge me. I spend an awkward few minutes standing around, then mingle to the best of my ability with party guests who look wayward.



When my brother arrives with the last of the food to be picked up, we set the table with food, food, and more food.



Chowtime!



As if one cake is not enough, we end up with three:





Here I am, serving up dessert:



Some shots of family, with family...

With my mom:



With my snuggle-cuddle-able niece, Kaitlyn. She's a fraternal twin, but as she and her sister are growing up, I'm having trouble telling them apart.


The twins and their mom, my cousin Susan:


The twins and their uncle, my cousin Vinh. Ironically, Vinh met Tung before I did because they went to the same high school. After Tung and I started dating in college, we found out each other's relations to Vinh.



My paternal grandparents:


Finally, the guests depart:





It was a taste of what is to come, the realization that every young woman must have when looking at herself in the mirror, all dressed up, and discovering that she has grown up, ready for the next big journey in her life. Somewhere in the approaching distance, I can hear my wedding bells ringing.

Suwari Waza

These techniques done on the knees require a greater level of precision, a more forceful maneuvering through every step. Sitting kneecap-to-kneecap, there is less mai-ai--distance--between you and your partner. The cheats of using arms strength and vertical leverage do not apply, and balance becomes harder to take as your partner sits stable, closer to the ground.

Sensei explained that suwari waza techniques stemmed from the ancient samurai ways, where a warrior could not rise without permission from his lord. As a result, the samurai devised ways to attack while still seated in respectful seiza. Sensei also said it would help us learn how to move if, from a seated position, we were suddenly attacked--the rules of blocking, blending, and moving out of the way still applied, the most important lesson being, don't freeze.

I used to be good at shikko, the knee-walking that my former Sensei was so keen on using as a warm-up exercise. Now, either my knees have softened after having been out of practice, or my age comes upon me in the form of stiffer joints. My kneecaps throb and my legs burn from cut-off blood flow. I close the distance between my partner and myself, moving in tight to his body, trying to make every joint lock precise and controlled. One advantage of suwari waza is that, seated, I do not feel so much that my petite 5-foot frame is being towered over by a world of giants. Down now to my level, I slide, pivot, and pin, learning how to walk and move in an entirely new way.

Happo no Giri

The "eight direction throw" is also a bokken suburi exercise that can be used to cleanse the negative energies of the old year and usher in the new. Instead of the usual paired practice, Sensei had us spread out and taught us how to cut eight ways, facing a different direction for each cut, using the corners of the room as a guide. Suburis are meant to be practiced alone, but as a group, the collective energy became a palpable thing. Our bokkens rose and fell together, our ki-ai's were timed, and the swishing of our feet across the mat made a soft wind's song as we fed off this synergy.

A former boss once drew a helix sculpture to help me visualize synergy. He said we each go through our individual lives and different jobs, but the points where the helix met were where we communicated and what kept the structure together as a whole. So it was important not only to find the merging points, but to ride their energy.

Learning how to play a musical instrument had been one of those things that I had always meant to do but never got a chance to. "If you have a heart, "Sensei had told me, "you've got rhythm. Aikido is rhythm, and it is music."

We cut through eight directions in the dojo, like a compass star and all its sub-directions. Together, we cast our last year's sorrows, shortcomings, and negative energies out to the winds. The rain beat a staccato rhythm against the dojo walls, washing away the old year. I moved and cut with my bokken, thinking ahead to sunny days as I welcomed in the new.

Pre-Engagement

Before my boyfriend and I move into our newly-purchased house, our parents have banned together to propose a pre-engagement dinner, traditionally hosted by the girl's side of the family. They've tolerated almost nine years of us dawdling in this relationship without the prospect of marriage, and they've just about had enough. Apparently, moving in to live with a guy before I've legally tied the knot devalues my worth, and only through the "title" that is promised during the pre-engagement ceremony can I prevent this from happening.

The modern, independent, and Western-bred side of me rolls her eyes at such formality. I've lived with my family all my life, gone to college close to home, and have never moved out, so I feel I've long overstayed my welcome under my parents' watchful eyes. At this age, a certain twinge of embarrassment surfaces when I am forced to tell friends and colleagues. "I still live with my parents." But the traditional respectful, Eastern-born side of me cautions that if I do not heed and uphold the ways of my culture, I will be uprooted and drifting without clear ideals to pass along to my future children, who will be born on this American soil and may never fully understand, acknowledge--even see--Viet Nam. This side of me quells the knee-jerk reaction of my other half that wants to dismiss my mom's initial proposal for the pre-engagement dinner, and because my parents have been mostly tolerant of my headstrong ways, I thought this would be a small indulgence to make them happy.

I have learned to become self-assured in most aspects of life thus far; in my academic and professional endeavors, I've succeeded enough to feel confident in my knowledge and abilities, but suddenly, the concept of marriage and the traditional ceremonies leading up to it freezes me like a deer in headlights. As my mom described the proper ways to do things, I felt the need to hyperventilate into a paper bag. As if the thought of a traditional engagement party with countless close and distant relatives ogling at me wasn't enough to send me screaming for the hills, now I have an approaching menace to deal with: pre-engagement.

How am I supposed to know that the guy's side of the family needs to bring over tea and a pair of wine bottles as gifts upon attending the dinner, or that the girl's side of the family gives back a gift of traditional sticky-rice cakes that must be pre-ordered for nuptial ceremonies? Or that the guy's party must attend the dinner in an even number because an odd number is considered bad luck for the future pairing? Casual and simple in my taste for clothes, I never took great joy in shopping or playing dress-up, and now I have to think about what to wear to the event. Does white symbolize death and bad luck instead of purity? Does red scream "whore" instead of merely being flamboyant? Is pink somewhere in the middle? It would be proper for me to take a day off work and help out with the preparations on the day of the dinner. I could already picture my time-off request--Hours: 8; Reason: some sort of traditional pre-engagement ceremony that I didn't even know existed until fairly recently.

To me, a "traditional" proposal would be my man popping a perfect diamond ring in a romantic setting, and that I'd say yes on my own terms instead of under the manipulation of family. It's a goal I am still striving for as Tung and I continue to save up our assets after depleting the account for the house purchase. But for now, I will go through with this small indulgence of the pre-engagement dinner, a first step to exploring a new world of old traditions.

Knitting

It took over 16,000 stitches to knit the 9 squares that I had mailed off to Knit-a-Square Foundation. After a long flight to South Africa, the 8x8-inch squares will be sorted by material and then pieced together to make blankets for orphaned children, each blanket containing a patchwork of colors and yarns from around the world. Trying out different knitting stitches while finding a good way to use up my yarn scraps from past projects, I liked the idea of contributing a small part of something that will become a cohesive, whole unit, helping to warm children through the winter months.

I took up knitting on a dare because a friend of mine, who started before me, mentioned that learning how to knit from an instructions book was impossible. Being a technical writer by trade, I set out to prove her wrong. It was something I had meant to pick up, anyway, and I figured if I really got stuck, I could ask Tung's grandma for help. Though she's a avid knitter and was eager to teach me the tools of the trade, the only way I could have learned how to knit was on my own. I'm left-handed, and so is she, but ironically, she learned how to knit right-handed because the woman who taught her in Viet Nam had initially refused to do so unless Tung's grandma agreed to pick up right-handed knitting. When the patterns became reversed, coupled with how hard it was to translate Vietnamese terminology into the English instructions I had become acquainted with (knit, purl, knit in back of stitch), it became clear that I was going nowhere fast as her pupil.

So I kept at it with my little left-handers' guide to knitting. Like my other self-taught endeavors--learning how to look at Magic Eye books, rollerskating, and reading Vietnamese--knitting came with a whole new set of frustrations that I trained myself to work through in order to master. Hands tangled in yarn, knitting needles jabbing me every which way, fingers tender from the tension of the needles rubbing up against them, I slowly pieced together my first scarf. Something about falling into the rhythm of a pattern and keeping the hands busy while the mind was free to drift instilled within me a sense of zen. And something about those journeys in life that you start thinking you could get help, but that you end up having to make on your own, gives them a sense of deeper meaning and value. I made many knitting mistakes throughout the years, and though I attempted to fix them, some of them I couldn't quite amend or cover up. So I left them in my work like scars, a testimony of being human, making mistakes, and ultimately learning from them.

At the post office when my package to Knit-a-Square was being weighed, I was asked to declare a value for the parcel, one of the requirements for sending it. "I don't know the value," I had told the postal worker behind the counter, "It's for charity." When she pressed on, I threw out a number to be done with: "Ten dollars." But the value of feeling good about myself for accomplishing a meaningful task at the year end, of using a self-taught hobby to do good, of contributing to an effort to warm orphaned children in South Africa--now, that's priceless.

Come n Get It

After using up all my drink tickets from the company holiday party and downing over two full glasses of water in an attempt to sober up, I found myself in the parking lot of the dojo half an hour before class started for the evening. It was like Mecca, like home, like the North to my compass needle--the place where, in my slightly inebriated state, I half-consciously defaulted to. On auto-pilot, I suited up in the Ladies' room, donning my gi and hakama. It was a good thing putting those on and tying the various strings had become second-nature.

Training under the influence turned out to be a better experience than I had thought. Muscles warmed and brain fuzzy, I had the added benefit of being completely limber and relaxed, as well as being able to shut off that often-overanalytical part of me that tried too hard, or automatically censored all that I did. I was past the fear of pain during take-downs and loosened up during all the instances where I was pinned. Walking by to observe, Sensei questioned my training partner whether he was "giving me enough juice." Probably he was giving me plenty, but I was more relaxed than normal.

Something about sweating or aerobic workouts got me to sober up really quickly--more so than times in the past when I had that much to drink. By the time I made it home, I felt completely fine. But a few hours later, I found a reason why attempting to train while drunk was a bad idea: I couldn't find my Ziploc bag that I stored my jewelry in. Two rings, a pair of hoop earrings, and a watch, nowhere to be found in either my gym bag or purse. It finally occured to me that I must have left it on the ledge of the sink in the Ladies' room after changing. Most of the contents in that Ziploc bag weren't expensive, but all of it had been gifts, and so they bore sentimental value. Except for the watch, my boyfriend had given me all those pieces of jewelry. We had walked along the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk when he bought me the heart-shaped ring, and for Valentine's he had bought me the other ring with two linking hearts. And those hoop earrings, my favorite because they didn't have studs and I could snap them on and off easily before and after class--they had been from him, too.

Remorseful and panic-stricken, I made a round of calls, asking Sensei to look for the bag on the ledge of the sink before the early-morning training session began the next day. The dojo shared the grounds with a high school, and I didn't know who else besides dojo members accessed those restrooms. I fought through a nerve-wrecking night, and in the morning when I called him, Sensei said, "Yes, I have your stuff. If you come to training tonight, you can get it back." Seriously, I could hug the man.

Coming to actually train was of course not a requirement, but as evening rolled around, I found myself donning the familiar garbs again. I might as well since I'd be driving to the dojo, I reasoned, and besides, I felt like I should do pennance for my carelessness. Sensei was dangling that jewelry bag at Due North, at Mecca, at home. "If you want it," I could practically hear him saying, "come n get it."

Yes, Sensei, I thought. I am coming. I'll be right there.

House-hunting and Home-making

There was the house with the swallows' nest above the front door, bird poop shed in a caked heap to welcome guests to an interior even more bizarre--the hardwood floors made handicap-friendly, down to the deck in the backyard with ramps easing gently to the pavement perimeter of the garden. There was an odd spigot sticking out rather grotesquely where the bathtub's faucet should have been, and a fire alarm bell, and illuminated EXIT signs leading to the front door.

There was the house with the wasps' nests, dingy, hardened mud set in hexagonal designs, revealed by the gouges in the drywall, complimenting the ripped-out ceiling showing the water stains of a leaking roof.

There was the short-sale where vents sat half on the wall, half on the crown molding, as if tacked on in a last-ditch effort, Lego pieces that refused to fit.

There was the house with the bad roof and non-existing dining room and a kitchen so small you could barely turn around in it, let alone cook. A weird Alice-in-Wonderland door was built into the fence, leading to the neighbor's backyard . . . and then there were the rodent droppings that came up in the inspection papers.

There was the "probate sale," which is just a fancy way of saying someone had recently died in the house before it was put on the market. A gorgeous house otherwise, but already sold at a price beyond our reach, even if "potentially haunted" wasn't an issue.

There were the neighborhoods too close for comfort to middle- or high-schools where you risked hoodlums coming by to tag your mailbox, slash your tires, or egg your driveway, neighborhoods where kids chased balls carelessly into the streets, where young girls for some reason danced on their rooftops, grinning at cars driving by.

There was the house that looked gorgeous and perfect on Internet pictures, but turned out to be next to a cemetery.

There were flood zones, fault zones, Leaking Underground Storage Tanks (LUST), radon hazards, lead-paint warnings, freeway and train noise nuisances. There were good real estate agents and bad real estate agents, agents that didn't show up for their own Open Houses, and those who wrote emails in all caps, insisting that you were wasting their time.

There was " the one that got away"--new crown moldings, fresh paint, a gas-operated fireplace, a huge converted living room, professionally-landscaped yards, hardwood floors, and recessed lighting, all in a quiet neighborhood. There was the heartbreak of being outbid on one that finally mattered, and finding the strength to let go and the will to move on after "taking a break" and "being on rebound."

And then there was "the one"--not without its imperfections: a falling back fence, light fixture covers coming apart, a roof reaching the end of its life. And not without its oddities: strangely intense aquamarine bathroom walls, a mechanical pencil sharpener welded into the pantry, painted over in white, a side fence set strangely far back into the backyard's alleyway instead of moved further to the front of the house.



But in a way, it was perfect: already set up to be hospitable, but requiring just enough fixing up so that we could spend time personalizing and making it ours. There were the quaint touches--the new wood-burning fireplace in the living room, the dining table set that was the only piece of furniture in an otherwise vacant house, the Master bedroom looking out to a backyard with an abundance of fruit trees. On a brisk autumn evening when the warmth of summer had started to recede, leaving the nights longer and colder, we set foot in this house for the first time, looked it over, and signed for the bid, the first set of paperwork in an attempt to make it ours. There was a long road ahead, a huge learning curve filled with paperwork, price negotiations, more paperwork, conducting inspections, more paperwork, getting the house appraised, more paperwork, researching homeowners' insurance, more paperwork, getting the loan, and then signing all that paperwork over again at the escrow office.

"Feels like home," our agent had said when we signed for the bid. Without heat and furniture, the interior of the house felt cold and barren, but it had all the potential to be warm and cozy. I could see where the Christmas tree, adorned in lights, would peek out from the front window behind sheer white curtains, and smell baking cinnamon rolls, the sweet scent wafting warmly through the house. The aroma of butter cupcakes baking on a cool spring day, and the clinking of ice cubes against a frosty glass pitcher on a hot summer afternoon. In the weeks ahead, we planned "what-if's"--what color and material for the curtains, whether to go with white or stainless-steel appliances, how to renovate the backyard and re-landscape the front. We pictured where the inherited dining table would look best. . . and when you're debating on where the dining table should go, you're well on your way to committing to make it feel like home.