Thursday, February 15, 2007

words of...wisdom?

On one of my last days in Sydney before moving to China, while I was still in a long-distance relationship with Phil, I had dinner with mum and dad. I told Phil before meeting them that it was more or less our private farewell, though they would see me before leaving. Upon hearing this, he emailed me this document, which I have just now rediscovered lurking on my hard drive. Bear in mind that at this point Phil had never met my parents.

"How to forge strong relationships with your future in-laws" - by Philippe Roy

"I unfortunately cannot be present for this momentous occasion, but please be reassured that I will not trade your daughter for goats or cows, or even a set of perfectly healthy monkeys. I might consider a heard of camels, but 500 of them, no less..."

"...this being China she will miss a great deal of fun because of her vegetarianism. Who could come to China and not dine on rats, dogs and pigeon soup? But, I promise not to hold this against her, this is just how much I love her..."

"...of course you might say this is a crazy venture to fly straight into Mao's land. But Mao has been well preserved, and his face lies on all the 100 Yuan bills... I know, it's not the queen, but we'll just have to deal. Being Canadian, I sympathize and understand this."

"Mum and Dad, thank you for creating the princess of my little kingdom. I have yet to gather enough servants, so I'll have to use her to all of her abilities. I want to say "welcome to China" but I have been advised death would occur upon uttering these words... but 'tis Asian tradition."

"I wish I could be sitting at this table with you and sharing these moments, but I had to assign my queen as my official messenger. I hope this will answer all the questions you might have. Of course, you are more than welcome to come here to the middle land of the world, we will welcome you with open arms and try not to serve you your own pets for dinner."

BOW - a humourless Canadian.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Does the offer of 500 camels still stand???

Anonymous said...

With inflation and Canadian taxes (15% on all goods) I won't accept anything under 800 camels. But, since we're in Asia, I'm willing to negotiate - and share the profits with you, of course!

Anonymous said...

sounds fair enough to us!

Anonymous said...

I think you should go for the monkeys... you could train them and then sell them on.