Born in Beijing, I left my hometown for college in 1992, and then came to the States a few years later. In my mind, Beijing still has horse-drawn carts full of farm produce sharing roads with bicyclers, and ice pop is only 1 cent each. “Yong, you are so outdated now that I can’t even believe you ever lived here”, an old buddy in China once commented. Yeah, everything I know about China has been sealed in a precious time capsule of the country in its 1990’s. Bin and I love the opportunities and freedom US provides, yet deep down, we know where we came from will always be part of who we are. Each year, we celebrate Chinese New Year, and we make it a priority for our two kids — these 2nd generation Chinese immigrants — to learn Mandarin.

Shirley and Norman, both descendants of Chinese immigrants, got married in San Francisco. It was a full day with two tea ceremonies, a Christian wedding, and a dinner banquet in a Chinese restaurant. Throughout the day, I witnessed some Chinese traditions that I have only seen in movies or heard from my parents. These traditions that our bride and groom managed to include – in their busy wedding schedule planned to the minutest details – must be the custom their parents or grandparents brought in when they first landed on this foreign soil. The early Chinese immigrants, mostly coming during the “Gold Rush”, worked hard and lived frugally.

“The Chinese did not only mine for gold, but took on jobs such as cooks, peddlers, and storekeepers. In the first decade after the discovery of gold, many had taken jobs nobody else wanted or that were considered too dirty”
– Immigration: The Living Mosaic of People, Culture, and Hope

Throughout the years, they overcame many obstacles and preserved their culture distinction and heritage. Remember the redwood trees of the northern California coast? They are able to remain upright for millennia by growing close together with other redwood trees, intermingling root systems. I believe to Shirley and Norman’s parents, the traditions and values are their root systems, through which Chinese immigrants connected, endured, survived, and flourished to become a significant part of US ethnic diversity. While young folks in China nowadays are westernizing themselves in many aspects of their life including their wedding style, it is amazing to see how Shirley and Norman had kept the Chinese customs in their wedding for yet another generation.

Here are some pictures from their day.

Before winter started, we went back to Casa Real once again, and this time is for Kelly and Richard’s wedding.  We shot their engagement pictures last winter and the pictures turned out wonderful.  Ever since then, we have been expecting to meet them again on their big day.

Kelly’s family came from Japan.  Though I have shot a few Japanese/Japanese-born-American before, it was on Kelly and Richard’s wedding that I got a chance to take a closer look at some of the authentic Japanese tradition: Koto play and Taiko performance.

Koto is a tranditional Japanese stringed musical instrument and, according to wikipedia, the national instrument of Japan.  When the musician, dressed in kimono, sit down before the ceremony and started to set up koto, I was immediately mesmerized.   Even though I barely know anything about music, hearing just a few notes played on the koto brought to my mind the simple yet elegant beauty of traditional Japan.   “Popular among aristocrats, the koto was a romantic instrument in ancient Japanese literature. In one section of The Tale of Genji, Japan’ s first novel, Prince Genji falls deeply in love with a woman he has never seen after hearing her exquisite koto performance. The novel was written by the authoress Murasaki Shikibu, who was an accomplished koto player herself. ” (Koto World)

If “romantic” is the word to be associated with koto, the taiko performance Kelly and Richard brought to their reception was best described as “exciting, sensational, and awe-inspiring”. Taiko means “drum” in Japanese (etymologically “great” or “wide drum”).  Filled the room with rolling thunders, the three drummers blended rhythms, dance, and martial arts into a perfect and powerful harmony that almost freezed the time.  For a moment, I felt that I was brought back across time and space into castles and shrines in ancient Japan, a scene one would only see in motion picture movies.

Koto and taiko play filled Kelly and Richard’s wedding with romance and excitement.  Kelly and Richard, Congratulations! I am sure romance and excitement, two key ingredients of marriage, will accompany you beyond your wedding and throughout your life together.