Today, the wedding events began with a tea ceremony at Navine’s parents’ home in Paris, and ended with the largest bonfire I’ve ever seen at the chateau about an hour away in the French countryside. As with most Chinese events, the food was endless, and the food offered to the ancestors to bless the marriage was even more endless. We left the bride’s family’s home wondering what would happen with that huge roasted suckling pig, the duck, and all the fruit and sticky rice cake offerings. My family has never hosted a tea ceremony, so I have no idea if all that food really gets eaten or not.

Chris’s cousins’ parents and family were asking me if we would also have a Chinese tea ceremony when we got married. My first response is laughter, not because I think it’s dumb or ludicrous, but more because my parents would barely understand what a tea ceremony is for or what they would do during it. My dad is less Chinese than I am, and my mom doesn’t know anything about tea ceremonies and is Vietnamese. I summed it up nicely by saying, “No, my family isn’t that Chinese.”

I think these traditions are a great thing to have and to continue, and I was happy to be able to be a part of this one. I’m honestly a little sad that my family isn’t that Chinese and won’t be doing it because it ultimately means that any potential future generation of our family will not do it. If I didn’t have a tea ceremony, it’d be like a farce if I ever wanted my future children to have one. None of my cousins had a tea ceremony when they got married, either. It’s like the degradation of cultural identity as the generations continue and the lack of understanding of what the value is to keep these traditions going.