An Aloha shirt is a suit coat without inside pockets for people with nothing to hide. WroburltoWhen my daughter Tina announced that she was going to be married, my personal fantasy life faced a serious dilemma. Although she is my only human child, I had nourished two different visions for her wedding -- one in Hawaii and the other in coastal California. After doing the math, I realized I had only two options and that having more daughters wasn’t exactly timely.
For a bride and groom, love itself may be the ever-fixed mark of Shakespearean lore. But a Chinese mother-of-the bride focuses on wedding ceremonies. Fortunately, I knew that my wedding visions were not too different from Tina’s. Our lives have been written on coastlines as surely as my immigrant parents were drawn from the Canton mainland to the shores of the Philippines and then to the golden dream of California.
Tina’s first words were, “sui” which means water in Cantonese. I can still see her, in her car seat, waving and pointing gleefully at the ocean, mouthing out “sui, sui, Mommi, sui!” She and I have both lived in a coastal community since she was born and we have taken annual vacations together to ocean resorts, usually in Hawaii.
Part of this attraction is genetic, coming from our immigrant heritage. Growing up in Oakland, the coast was the Chinese equivalent of Gatsby’s green light, an ever-fixed symbol of success that was visible, but always distant. I remember when my father took a rare day off, he would put his five children in the car and we would drive to the boardwalk in Santa Cruz, chase the waves, pretend we were swimming, eat a picnic of hard boiled eggs, and drive back to Oakland. I grew up with a desire to return to the ocean and stay there, at least overnight for beginners.
Divine Music of Chance
Tina’s genetic roots evolved to bond in the loose sandy soils of the coast. So my dilemma was reduced by half, only one of my fantasy weddings would be rejected. The divine music of chance timing would intervene on the decision. Tina announced that she and Matt were marrying the same week that the Ritz Carlton began building its resort at Half Moon Bay. Once they saw that property, they were sold on having their wedding outdoors and oceanside at the Ritz Carlton.
However, I couldn’t let go of my Hawaiian wedding fantasy. Tina’s father Richard and I helped her plan a Hawaiian honeymoon and it seemed like such a wonderful idea that Wroburlto persuaded me to take it a little further. Our plan was to let Tina and Matt think that I was having a formal engagement party for them but to alert the guests that it was really a tacky Hawaiian party. Using frequent flyer miles, Wro and I impulsively hopped a flight to Honolulu in order to shop for appropriate party favors: tiki torches; grass skirts; ukuleles; and of course, some new Aloha shirts for Wro.
Our cover was nearly blown when Tina surprised us at the airport on our return. She asked how I accumulated six suitcases on a two day “business” trip. So when she began asking questions, I did what ever-fixed mothers-of-the-bride must do. I lied, for the sake of the party. “Press kits,” I said with a tone that mothers use to suggest children not pursue the line of questioning.
A few days later, Tina called to ask, ever so delicately, if I could possibly change the party “to casual from formal.” It was all I could do to focus and calmly reply, in my most matronly, traditional Chinese tone, “Tina, this is your wedding, you must learn to treat it very seriously.”
The party went over like tiny bubbles in the wine. Thanks to my brother Ben, who is known in serious karaoke circles as “The Chinese Elvis,” Tina and Matt, formally dressed, were greeted by an Uncle Don Ho impersonator, and 50 guests wearing Aloha shirts and shorts. I had some fresh leis flown in for the bride and groom, plus plastic ones for the rest of us, including Wro’s 165 non human siblings. We allowed Tina and Matt to change into Hawaiian attire and everyone had a pupu-popping good time. Wro sang “Sui Dreams of You” to Tina.
Thus, I compensated for one of my fantasies. The other one really was going to be formal. As you may have guessed, that is not my strong suit. Thank God, the Ritz Carlton is so good at it. The I Ching oracle for Unity is Pi, the meeting of water and earth. Chinese believe that water is good luck and the Ritz Carlton consulted with feng shui experts when they planned the Half Moon Bay property. Seated on a melon shaped bluff over rugged rock coast, the Shingle Style lodge uses redwood trellises and cedar roofing from its coastal environment. Ocean boulder fireplaces and hard wood floors maintain a historic feel, while ceramics are mostly Portuguese, a nice personal touch for the wedding, as Matt’s father’s family emigrated from the Azores. The Portuguese motif continues in the main restaurant, Navio, where the details mimic the boats of Half Moon Bay’s original Portuguese settlers.
Tina and Matt met with the hotel’s chefs to incorporate subtle touches from their cultural backgrounds, shiitake mushrooms in the salad for her, and Mediterranean fava beans with the sea bass for Matt, into the wedding menu. Since a stressed out mother-of-the-bride doesn’t need to worry about young people driving on coastal highways, the hotel was God sent. With two golf courses and a full spa, the Ritz Carlton has enough to hold the friends of young people. Matt played golf with some of his friends while Tina and her bridesmaids took Swedish massages in the spa and had hair and makeup done at the beauty salon. Tina was amazed how they helped create an individual look for each of the bridesmaids.
Because the ceremony itself was a dream, it is best remembered like music, in fleeting, intimate details. A champagne colored Mercedes Benz transported the mothers, bridesmaids, Richard and Tina to the ceremony site over the ocean. Golf carts returned the guests from the ceremony to the reception in the ballroom.
As Bach played, the joy of my desiring stopped on her way down the proverbial aisle and whispered in my ear. For a short while after that, I lost track of my ever-fixed mark, but I regained my composure for the reception.
Wro and his brother Happi joined this party, dressed in their new Hawaiian tuxedos of course. It was my daughter’s wedding, but it was a my dual fantasy, my American dream, my family’s ever-fixed light that we had actually reached out and touched.
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