SNL 2020

Wedding Tradition

This right here is where I am going to die.

Me: (slowly losing my mind) I mean, I won't mind if you will bury me in this spot as well. Go on, Qing. Go on without me. We had a good run. That's all alright now. Meet someone good and marry them well.

Qing: (slightly panting) Come on, Love. Just a couple of more steps to go. It won't be long now.

Me: (glowering at him) You have been saying that for two hours now. Just a couple of more steps to go, Dayu ah. A little bit more, Love. Well, stop lying to me, you absolute bastard!Whose idea is this again to go hiking just to see a fucking sunrise?!

Qing: You love her.

Me: (lifting my body a bit from the ground) Not anymore.

Qing: It has been a tradition of our family...

Me: Fuck you! Fuck your family. And fuck your ancestors. (lying fully on the ground again) I'm
not gonna do this.

Qing: (sitting beside me) (sighing) It's really unfortunate that Auntie Ollie and Baba remembered this past tradition of the Wangs that before a couple could get married, they should hike on the LingShan Mountain and watch the sun rise from here so their union will be blessed by the gods and our ancestors. I wonder why they stopped doing this at the start of the 20th century.

Me: Probably because someone died while hiking on this fucking trail.

Qing: (chuckling) Probably. But what can we do, my family suddenly resurrected this tradition.

Me: (chuckling hollowly) My ancestors has an ancient and forgotten tradition of swimming on natural running water like in streams and rivers until the couple was granted with their first born child. They do that to "cleanse" their bodies and ready it for mating to produce a child. But guess what, none of my family is reminding us to do that because the freaking winter is coming and we will die. Didn't your family think about that? That we could die while hiking on this mountain?

Qing: Think about it this way, they are not asking us to go all the way to the top on LingShan Mountain. We will go halfway and watch the sunrise on a temple's observatory. Isn't that nice.

I grabbed some little pebbles to throw it at him. Qing laughed before pulling me to a sitting position like him.

Me: Marry yourself. Go marry yourself. I know I said I'll love you forever and into eternity but apparently, there is a limit on what I can do for you. Waking up at 3 am in a hellishly cold day just so we can dress up with layer upon layers of heavy hiking clothes and then ACTUALLY hiking on a mountain is my limit. I'm sorry, Qing...we are over.

I love Qing, I do. I think you are all witness to what I can endure to stay with your Baba. But I am just a puny human and I have limits. This right here, is my limit.

The craziest part of all of these was there are other crazy hikers like us. Some are tired as me but I doubt if they are giving up and whining like I do.

Qing: (taking a sip of warm lemon water from a thermos) I think because they are aware that doing this will please the gods. No pain, no gain, Dayu ah. And no glory too.

Me: Can pleasing the gods be not synonymous to me losing my life?

Qing: You won't die. Come on.

Qing helped me get back to my feet. We continued on the hiking trail side by side. Full disclosure, I am okay to walk. I can walk. But this freaking hike required us to go up. Its not just hiking, its climbing a mountain. And thats fucked up, man. That's fucked up. Why do Wangs has this tradition anyways?