ShihYuin on Facebook: "Here is the speech that got me into the pool (because I was reviewing the script and didn't watch where I was walking). At a point of time, I was truly tempted (and intimidated) to cut the 10-min speech down to avoid potentially annoying some of the relatives. However, then I reminded myself: it's not about me, nor the relatives; it's about her, it's for her. There I braced up (with few glasses of red wine though) to go on with the original speech. For remembrance, below is the full text of the speech."
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First of all, who am I? I don’t think even the bride’s other close friends know our stories (and probably even my existence). Haha. I'm Shih Yuin. For the record, I’m her ex.... I mean ex-primary schoolmate, ex-secondary schoolmate, ex-debate teammate, ex-collegemate, ex-housemate, ex-university mate, and most importantly, the past, ongoing and ever-so soul twin.
When I was first told that I was to give a speech on her wedding, I was pleasantly surprised. Actually not really; for our significant bonding, if i wasn’t given any significant task to do, I’d probably give her a fierce stare throughout the ceremony. Okay I’m done with joking. I actually got pretty anxious after that first moment of pride, when I started to think about what to talk. Then I started to recollect again all the past memories I’ve walked through with her.
Knowing her has been a magical journey full of lessons and personal growth, which is the theme of this speech. She was actually 2 years younger than I’m, so we weren’t of the same year to have a full spectrum of interaction. Before chinese debate joined our fate in high school, I had in fact a sorta negative impression of her from the rumors and reputation spread around. Had I not been open to knowing her in person and putting aside what I had heard of her, we wouldn’t have exchanged total trust and understanding as we do today, and my life would have been drastically different from what has been today. Yes, drastically. So lesson 1: know someone through your own heart, not somebody else’ eyes, mouth and even ears. Oh by the way, she wanted me to highlight the fact that her notorious reputation in school back then was the result of a horrible wide-scale school bully. Her account. I lack witnesses. Haha.
Then, after the shoulder-by-shoulder fight in the debate team, I graduated from high school and went to INTI-UC in Nilai. Two years later, she followed my footsteps into INTI-UC under JPA scholarship. But soon I had to leave INTI for UW Madison in the states. Another two years later, however, again we met each other in UW Madison as badgers: UW Madison students. Of course, we had been keeping in touch from time to time for all the life roller coasters she was through all those while. During this period, I was watching her growing from an intelligent talented all-rounded girl, to a lady who was dauntless to fall, fail and explore her world before settling down to something she is sure of, while I made barely any growth remotely close to hers. Lesson 2: Embrace your fear. Walk over it, and grow ever stronger.
When it finally came to my turn to experience and her turn to watch me being swallowed by the turbulence in life, she passed me, through carrots and sticks, the wisdom she acquired through her days of struggle: The Secret. For those who don't know, it's from a book, "The Secret Law of Attraction", which says negativity attract negativity. As absurd as it might sound to be the Supreme Law of all, it's very true. In my current interpretation, it is saying: life is 10% about what has happened, and 90% about how you react to it. That is the lesson 3 I gathered from her. It transformed my life inside-out and upside-down, not even the tiniest bit of exaggeration..
Before the next lesson, let me share one hilarious story from hindsight. By the time I graduated from high school, we actually made a “youthful” promise that if both of us remained single when we got old, we would get together. Wait, calm down. I’m not here to stop her from getting married. Because later on in the states, I fell for a guy; and what's more was that she was there to encourage me for my first ever confession to a guy. And she even said that on every 5th of March she would celebrate my confession anniversary. Freaking liar; she’s never been back to Malaysia since then. Should we urge her to come back more often? So there came the lesson 4: love is universal. Everyone is unique. Whoever we happen to fall in love for, be it a guy or a girl this time around or next time, is whom we love. There is no straight vs LGBT. Love is love. There is no need to fit ourselves into the box of a label.
Then I flew back after graduation and settled here in KL since then, while she continued her undergraduate and even postgraduate about stem cell in UW. This March(?), the moments she told me of her elopement and then agreed with the lengthy traditional marriage ceremony, I knew something has quietly changed. From the day 1 I knew her, it was crystal clear that marriage was not a need and even option for her. She wasn’t 100% against it; but she was both intellectually and emotionally strong enough not to rely on the moral obligation and legal protection from a marriage to safeguard her social status and her survival in case a love becomes rotten, so much so that she found the triviality and complexity in the marriage proceedings unworthy. Her beliefs have not changed. What she aspires to has not changed. But she has slowly come to value more the feelings of the people she cares and be more willing to treat the world in a more complex way than she was before, although this necessarily comes with a price of complicating her peaceful life which she used to have full control of. Lesson 5: Life is not necessarily about arriving at a certain goal. It’s good to have a destination in mind to have a direction to navigate. But keep the mind open. Every moment changes. Remember to smell the roses. It’s the experiences along the way that enrich us as human beings. Life makes its turns, and we just have to learn to go with the flow. I’m proud of her decision, and I’d continue to be for all of them that she will be making in the future.
From 2006, eleven years down the road, she has always been one of a kind: smart, bold, independent from the outside, and incredibly self-aware and profound as you know her more. Of all, at heart she is a social deviant. She knows herself is unique, and she is not a tiny bit afraid of being different. There she figures what she truly wants and her priorities, and goes ahead pursuing them. At times she is faced with resistance that comes along her deviance. But she doesn't give up just like that. By all means, she finds ways around it to strike a happy balance between what she wants and what is wanted of her. And she has almost always made it. That's what has made her irreplaceable. One of a kind. But in fact not just her. We are all unique beings. That's how we should establish our unique existence in the universe. Last lesson: listen to our hearts. Learn to play deviant and tailor the world to us, not the other way around.
Let me present a meme.
This is 欣柔.
欣柔 does not simply follow the norms.
欣柔 explores herself and seeks firmly what she wants.
欣柔 is unique.
Be unique.
Be like 欣柔.
Certainly, Kit, as the significant half for her, is no less unique and amazing, if not more.
With these, at last, I dearly wish her together with her soulmate-cum-husband Kit, will be having a smooth navigation down the road in their mutual life path, with no less exciting and enriching experiences along the way. Again, congratulations on this union of two deep, rare souls. Happy Wedding.
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