请你嫁给我吧？
Last Friday night I told Alicia that work had given me a couple of tickets for a VIP tour of a factory down in Southampton. Bemused, and somewhat exhausted she didn’t even bat an eyelid when I told her she’d have to get up at 6:30 for the privilege. Any of you who know Alicia will know that 6:30 is early.
This, it transpired, was somewhat short of the truth and when we got off the train in Chichester the game was up. She knew we were going to spend the day on the beach.
The beach was virtually empty and we had a lovely quiet morning eating smoked salmon and crackers for breakfast, followed almost immediately by BBQ’d chicken and salad for lunch. We ate too much and had to walk it off. Being the only two on the beach we dutifully packed up the beach-hut (including our shoes) and set off around East Head.
Walking barefoot wasn’t an issue until we reached a point at which the beach turned from sand into pebbles and, overcome with pain, we were forced to turn off the beach and clamber over the sand-dunes.
It was then that Alicia received her second surprise of the day, I knelt down and asked:
请你嫁给我吧？
Words are simply not enough to describe the moments that followed. We looked at each other for what seemed like an eternity before Alicia started to weep and flung her arms around me. Behind the floods of tears I saw the happiest smile I have ever seen. And then she replied,
好吧！
Inside I felt a brief moment of panic; there I was trying to be clever and ask in Chinese but hadn’t given a second thought to what the reply might be. I knew 好 meant good, but what about that 吧 on the end. But, in that moment, words didn’t matter I knew she’d said, “Yes.”
21 comments
on 05.08.08 at 12:23:15
Wow, that’s awesome. Congratulations matey! :-)))
on 05.09.08 at 04:35:43
Thanks Larry. All quite exciting really.
How’s life over in Vietnam?
on 05.09.08 at 08:50:48
Hey Bill
Just stumbled upon this page via facebook - congratulations dude! Hope to see you soon…
Jig
on 05.10.08 at 07:15:47
Congrats mate. Fabulous news!
on 05.11.08 at 06:49:38
Hey Bill,
This is great news. Very impressed with the effort you put in, and it sounds like Alicia was too… Wishing you the very best
Congratulations
on 05.11.08 at 07:34:30
Thanks guys.
As Alicia said to me the other day;
Really appreciate all your messages. We will have to organise some sort of celebration soon.
on 05.13.08 at 11:59:21
Congratulations Bill!!!
on 05.18.08 at 07:00:41
Congratulations Bill!
Wish you happiness with your bride!^_^
on 05.18.08 at 21:25:16
Thanks Cassie and Will
on 05.19.08 at 05:59:43
Alicia sent me the link and told me something happened. i thought she was talking about some news on the website. totally didn’t expect to see your engagement story after clicking on the link! i’m still a bit in shock! so happy for you guys! if i’m not at work i would cry!
on 05.19.08 at 06:44:09
Thanks Luly. Obviously when you were last over here I knew I was going to ask her but couldn’t say anything. Nothing wrong with shedding a few tears at work
Hope you had a good holiday.
on 05.21.08 at 08:56:38
Ruth said - I’m glad someone else cried.
We’re both really so happy for you. Congratulations.
It’s amazing.
on 05.21.08 at 09:12:04
Congratulations (belatedly) to you both. Should read my RSS more often! Are you doing the vows in Chinese as well?
on 05.23.08 at 13:16:01
Hey Guys,
That’s soooooooooooooooo greaaaaaaaaat!!!!
I’m soooooooo HAPPY for you… I felt just like crying.
CONGRATULATIONS!!!
on 05.30.08 at 00:46:23
oh my god……………..
That is absolutely an wonderful and romatic proposal I’ve ever heard!! I am so happy to hear that you guys are getting alonf with each other so well and are getting marry soon!!!
haha… you know marriage life is so amazing!!!That’s what I can tell you as a newly-wed.
Well~When can I go back to England to attend your wedding?!!
Wow I’ll definetely be there!!!(Exciting!!!~~~~)
Anyway what I wanted to say is: Congratulations!!! I am soooo happy for you~~~~~~~~~~
Tell Alicia I do miss her and you guys so much.
I hope I can arrange my schedule to go ~
on 06.25.08 at 08:59:57
Haha
It seemed that you need not to make friends with me to learn more Chinese !
But I still congretulations!
I can explain the ‘好吧’for you ,
好—— it not only means good , in this condition (which you ask for merry), 好 means “ok ” or “no problem” or “I agree with you” and the like.
吧——I want to tell you that “吧” is a word which meaningless, it only usefull when it add another word (adjective ), so , here, it is meaningful when it after 好，so ,好吧——means she agree with you, but a little shy, if she answered that 好！ Maybe I want to doubt she is chinese or not. aha!
But another meanning of “好吧”——is ——yes ,I agree with you ,but please give me more time to think about it!
All of that is she said “好吧” did not refuse you ! so ,the answer is here —— congretulations !
My English is not perfet, but I believe that you understand that !
aha!
on 09.14.08 at 07:18:40
@刘罗军(manature) -
Many thanks for your congratulations and explanation. There are some moments in life when we don’t need words to communicate. This was one of them.
on 09.14.08 at 07:21:50
@Irene -
Thanks Irene. If we don’t see you in England you’ll definitely have to come and celebrate with us in China next year.
on 09.14.08 at 07:22:35
@Janine -
Thanks Janine. Hope all is well with you.
on 09.14.08 at 07:23:09
@Andrew -
Thanks. That’s the plan. I’m not going to do it unless I understand what I’m saying though.
on 09.14.08 at 07:24:54
@Rob -
You’re not going to confess to shedding a tear yourself?
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