Friday, August 28 2009

Marriage equals to a lifestyle

Since I am a father of a 19-year-old daughter, I am quite keen to better know the secrets of a happy marriage in hope to provide some good pieces of advice to my daughter in the process of the selection a good future husband for her.

A French sociologist made a serious research on marriage and he summed up his results on one single phrase: marriage equals to a lifestyle.

He may be wrong. But I agree with him on his above conclusion.

The generations of 1980s and 1990s have been inevitably poisoned by numerous novels of Mrs. QIONG Yao琼瑶. She made a fortune through the royalties and became one of the wealthiest Chinese novelist in China.  But how about her tens of millions of readers, even hundreds of millions of readers?  Who cares about those poisoned, mislead, contaminated young poor readers?

According to laws, if someone causes irreparable damages to others, he or she may risk to face a trial, a prosecution. If a novelist succeeded in causing irreparable damages to millions and millions of readers, what is the consequence? Become a celebrity and a nouveau rich?

Let me come back to my main point.

Our world and our society are not perfect, nor ideal. Idealism and perfectionism don’t work. So just forget the fairy tales fabricated by Ms. 琼瑶。 Let us face the reality and live in a real world.

In the real world in which we are living, love and marriage are often two distinct things. They are not always the same. Love and romance cannot always lead to a happy marriage. Getting married to another person, it is much more than just living with your spouse, you get married to a new lifestyle, a new ways of life, a new small society around you. You will become a new person.

What are the differences between love and marriage?  The most famous and successful Chinese young pianist LANG Lang 朗朗 answered this question in a good way. In fact, he didn’t answer to this question in a direct way, but rather in an indirect way.

While giving an interview to CNN, he told about his hobbies, besides his concerts, his daily piano exercises, he likes also to sing Chinese pop songs, he imitates signer ZHOU Jielun, sometimes, he plays Chinese traditional chest with his father, he likes writing also, writes some short articles. But of course he is totally aware that his career is build on the piano. His identity and statue is  first and most a professional pianist. He is not  周杰伦，he cannot compete with 周杰伦 in pop songs. He is not 聂卫平. He has no chance to revive the exploits of 聂卫平 in 1980s, five consecutive victories against the Japanese top players. He cannot dream of writing as well as professor于丹

In his own words, "So when it comes to my career, I often say: where is my piano?"

My conclusion is: pop songs, chest, writing are your love and romance, but in the bottom of your heart, you should clearly know that you are not 聂卫平，neither 周杰伦，nor 于丹，these are your hobbies. When it comes to your marriage, you should ask the same question as Lang Lang did : “ where is my piano? ”

Your piano is your marriage, your identity, your lifestyle, your all future.

Of course, you can swim,  since swimming is a good sport，why not. But if you imagine and blindly believe that you can swim like 张琳，you are simply out of your mind. You are not 张琳. You can not swim as well as 张琳. Just go back and play your piano.

Each girl and boy must be aware of what your piano is and where your piano is, that implies to know who you are and what you really want.

a piece of advice to Janice, just ask yourself this quesiton: where is my piano? Is he my piano?