Another IBC's experience
Created Tuesday, 26th April 2011, 22:41 by Whykay
Just found this in the Irish Independent. An IBC sharing her experience growing up in two different cultures and end up marrying an Irish man. Sounds familiar? To me it does. My hubby, fiancé back then, also tried to learn Cantonese. He attended beginner's class, and his Chinese does its job (the ones he remembers anyway).
- Good morning. - Jo Sun
- Good night. - Jo Tao
- Bon apetite. - Dai Ga Man Maan Sik Faan
- Enjoy your meal. (after dinner) - Dai Ga Man Maan Sik.
- Thank you (in both contexts) - Im Goi / Do-or Dja
(Apologies, please excuse for my phonetics above, I don't know the standard for romanisation, but you get the gist.)
It's so weird reading the article. I too wore a Chinese dress and did a quick tea ceremony before more civil registry followed by a blessing (wore my wedding dress for that). Even the best man surprised us with some Cantonese (he's English). We asked guests to give us cash, that made the non-Chinese guests really uncomfortable, so we received many one-4-all vouchers (got a nice flat-screen tv out of it ;-) ). The growing up with both cultures is not so different to my childhood.
As I meet up with more IBCs, mainly girls, I noticed that many of us are either married or going out with an Irish guy. See, Chinese traditions is one thing, love is blind to wherever you are from, it just happens. I'm just so happy to read a fellow IBC, and one I never met either. So there are more IBCs out there, just takes awhile to come out of the woodwork.