the Father's speech at Toscana wedding!

Distinguished Guests, Ladies and Gentlemen, Good Evening!

Welcome you all on this beautiful day, cross thousands of miles to the beautiful Italy and this beautiful farmhouse to join us for J and J’s wedding celebration.

I have been looking for this once in lifetime opportunity to give my Father’s speech for a while. However, since we have a lot of relatives and friends came from China, I have to deliver my speech in both English and Chinese, it will take twice the time for the task. I am also aware that many of you have the same eagerness as I to find out tonight’s dinner Menu will meet our expectation for a truly good Italian food. So I promise you, my speech will be short.

Today’s event is not only a significant milestone for Jing, but also for our whole family. There is a Chinese proverb says “It took thirty years for a daughter-in-law to be polished into a mother-in-law”.  I want to say to my wife: “Darling, after 30 years hard work, you finally become a mother-in-law. Congratulations!”

We are very proud to have Jing as our son. That pride has two folders. On one side, as a father, I have never laid my finger on Jing in the past 30 years, never yelled to him, only raised my voice once. Of course, I played some other tricks in order to force him to do something, such as “finishing your 15 minutes SAT preparation exercise each day, otherwise I won’t drive you to the cinema to see a movie with your friends.” That trick was pretty effective. Jing got his 1520 high SAT score just in one shot at 10^th grade.

On the other side of our pride, since I couldn’t, didn’t and wouldn’t force Jing to do anything, all his achievement, his success, his frustration and set backs were made by himself, Including found his love and a beautiful wife.

Many of you are familiar with that famous quote from Forrest Gump: ”My mom said, life is just like a box of chocolate, you never know what you will get the next.” If you get a chocolate is not the one you are expecting, what are you going to do about it? At this moment, I’d like to share with you a not so famous quote with you as my advice.

53 years ago when I was a teenage boy, I was studying English using a text book called “Essential English” from a British publisher. The book tells a story about a teacher and six his students. As time passing by, students were growing up, two of them falling in love. The teacher talked to them and raised a question similar to the one I just mentioned.

The boy named Peddrew answered the question. At that time, I could spell the word Love, L-O-V-E, easily, but I had no idea what it means, and absolutely had no idea how it would be tasted and tested. But Peddrew’s word struck me instantly and carved into my mind until up today.

Peddrew says: “When love is there, the struggle will only draw us closer together.”

J and J with all our best wishes to you, I deeply believe that no matter what kind of struggle you may face in the future, it will only draw you two closer together.

Ladies and Gentlemen, please raise your glass, for J and J, cheers!

婚礼在最后切蛋糕时，儿子也讲了一番话，他动情地在感谢父母之时，领悟父母带着他来到美国闯生活的不易而流下了眼泪，这让我意外，儿子天性善良，敏感，似在和我们告别，要开始他新生活的不舍，还是听了他父亲的speech而感触良多。