One of the aspects that drew my husband and I to the notion of a wedding in Singapore, is something that we had held deeply in our hearts, and that is that through the four thousand years of the history of the city of Singapore, artists from various cultures have contributed to the one sole collective, the one sole-and soul-feeling. That is the great respect and love that the Chinese have for nature. This is reflected in all mediums of visual art, be it in the works on fine silk scarves, to the teapots, to the calligraphy on very delicate rice paper.
We discovered that the Yong gallery in the Singapore neighborhood of Chinatown had a collection of the works of a calligraphy master, Yong Cheong Thye. We had our wedding in the Singapore Botanic Gardens. And since Singapore was our destination for our honeymoon, and we were already there, the honeymoon began before the wedding did so we were relaxed and standing in a garden of flowers and in love. We did not have a large reception, just a brief gathering with a bit of food and tea, and he and I decided that for that night, we would take a trishaw tour through Chinatown, which was known to make a stop at the Yong Gallery.
We had to meet the master who had inspired our beautiful day, and we wanted him to be a part of that, a part of the rest of our lives. We reached the gallery, still in our wedding attire, which created a bit of attention. We spoke to the master of love of expressing the deeper meanings of life through his art, of his days of training at the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts, about botanical gardens, nature, and true love. He then took the time to create two red fans, one with my name and one with my husband’s, and as he handed them to us he thanked us. Tears welled up in my eyes, I’m just like that, and we thanked him. We made plans to come back the following year to see the master, and we headed out, headed out to the streets of Chinatown, and to the streets that will make up the rest of lives.