What’s the most romantic thing you’ve ever done? I believe that proposing marriage is pretty romantic. I've done it a few times, and yes it was romantic at the time. Perhaps foolish as well, but you get that with the romantic sometimes. I can think of others who have made romantic sacrifices. I fear that my meager doings pale in comparison. But last Friday, I did something a teeny bit romantic. I married the same woman twice. Sort of.
We are selling our home and later moving to another country. Well, we've found a buyer and contracted a price and a moving day, but now we have to register the sale with the municipal real estate transfer office. When we went to that office a week ago, we had to show the officials our documents and they found a problem. My identity number on the marriage certificate is my passport number from when we were married, many many years ago. It's not the same as that in my current passport. Nor, come to think of it, the same as on the documents we signed when we sold our previous apartment and bought the one we will soon be vacating. (I've had several passports over the years, and I've managed to keep all of them. And I look the same in every passport photo. Awful) But the only way we could satisfy the local requirements was to get a new marriage certificate. There were a few other things, but that was the big one.
That was a run-around of classic proportions, but we ended up cancelling our Friday classes and making a day trip to another city and getting ourselves re-registered there. (We travelled to my wife's hometown, those familiar with China understand the magnetic power of the Hukou) We had to be up at 5 to catch the morning train, and I could see that the traveling and the stress were taking its toll on my dear wife. I did what I could to keep the mood light and positive, and succeeded at least in getting the two young women in the marriage registration office to smile and laugh with us. At least they seemed to like us. I had noticed that there is a podium with a background where they take Official Marriage Photos, so I proposed a bit of levity; we should have our photo taken as a newly married couple. My darling kind of winced at the suggestion, but the young ladies thought it was a cool idea. They took photos of us holding our new marriage certificates at the podium, just like any newly married couple. So yes, I'm romantic enough to marry the same woman twice. And I have the pictures to prove it.
I'm the one with the goofy smile.
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