The wedding banquet for “Lavender Sea” and “Gil” that took place yesterday may have looked just like any other such gathering — with one difference: The newlyweds didn’t know the names of many of the guests in attendance because many were Plurk friends.
“You ask me if there are guests whose names I don’t know? Well, there are actually quite a few,” Lavender Sea, the bride, told the Taipei Times during a telephone interview prior to the banquet.
Not only that, but she cited several Internet pseudonyms.
Photo Courtesy: Lavender Sea and Gil.
“Whether you want to write your real name on the red envelope or not, it doesn’t matter, but make sure you provide your Internet nickname so we know who it comes from,” she said.
It’s a common practice in Taiwan for guests at a wedding to put money inside a red envelope and write their name and best wishes for a marrying couple.
Lavender Sea and Gil are actually Internet nicknames as well and many of the guests actually know them better by their nicknames.
Internet pseudonyms were an important part of the wedding because the couple met each other on Plurk and a lot of the guests at their wedding banquet were their Plurk friends.
Lavender Sea said that six out of 30 tables at their banquet in Sinjhuang District (新莊), New Taipei City (新北市), consisted of Internet friends, while about 50 people asked for invitations via e-mail rather than traditional printed invitations by mail.
“Besides not knowing the real names of some of the guests, we’ve actually met a Plurk friend ‘Night Sun’ in person for the first time today,” Gil said after the banquet.
The pseudonym situation also caused some confusion at the reception table.
“I signed my real name on the guestbook and the receptionists were unable to find my name on the guest list,” Plurker “Old Coconut” (老椰子) said.
What happened to Old Coconut was not an isolated case.
In fact, unlike most weddings where there is usually one reception table for friends and relatives of the groom and another for those of the bride, there was one table for friends and relatives of the couple, and another for Internet friends of the couple.
Recalling their relationship, Lavender Sea said she and Gil met on Plurk in July 2008 and met for the first time in person at the end of August.
Afterwards, they went out several times with other Plurkers, but gradually, they began to have feelings for each other as they exchanged more and more private messages on Plurk.
“At first I was a little worried, since we met on the Internet and it was a long-distance relationship,” she said, adding that she was living in Taipei at the time, while Gil was in Kaohsiung.
“However, I guess neither of us were too concerned about this, so we became a couple and stayed in touch online, even if we couldn’t see each other in person,” she said.
The relationship developed and last year they decided to become companions for life.
Adding to the unusual nature of their relationship, the couple got married at a chapel in Okinawa, Japan, on March 11, the day the country was hit by a devastating earthquake and tsunami.
As one of the Plurker guests wrote on the red envelope, the marriage was not a “marriage made by God,” but rather “made by Plurk.”
FAST TRACK? Chinese spouses must renounce their Chinese citizenship and pledge allegiance to Taiwan to gain citizenship, some demonstrators said Opponents and supporters of a bill that would allow Chinese spouses to obtain Taiwanese citizenship in four years instead of six staged protests near the Legislative Yuan in Taipei yesterday morning. Those who oppose the bill proposed by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) demanded that Chinese spouses be granted citizenship only after renouncing their Chinese citizenship, passing a citizenship test and pledging allegiance to Taiwan. The demonstrators, who were protesting at a side entrance to the Legislative Yuan on Jinan Road, were mostly members of the Taiwan Association of University Professors and other organizations advocating Taiwanese independence. Supporters of the bill, led
SILENT MAJORITY: Only 1 percent of Chinese rejected all options but war to annex Taiwan, while one-third viewed war as unacceptable, a university study showed Many Chinese are more concerned with developments inside their country than with seeking unification with Taiwan, al-Jazeera reported on Friday. Although China claims Taiwan as its own territory and has vowed to annex it, by force if necessary, 23-year-old Chinese Shao Hongtian was quoted by al-Jazeera as saying that “hostilities are not the way to bring China and Taiwan together.” “I want unification to happen peacefully,” Shao said. Al-Jazeera said it changed Shao’s name to respect his wish for anonymity. If peaceful unification is not possible, Shao said he would prefer “things to remain as they are,” adding that many of his friends feel
Taiwan has “absolute air superiority” over China in its own airspace, Deputy Minister of National Defense Po Horng-huei (柏鴻輝) told a meeting of the legislature’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee on Monday, amid concern over whether Taipei could defend itself against a military incursion by Beijing. Po made the remarks in response to a question from Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Chiu Chih-wei (邱志偉) on whether Taiwan would have partial or complete air superiority if Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) warplanes were to enter Taiwan’s airspace. Po, a retired pilot, said that the Taiwanese military has “absolute air superiority” over PLA
A shipment of basil pesto imported by Costco Wholesale Taiwan from the US in the middle of last month was intercepted at the border after testing positive for excessive pesticide residue, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said yesterday. Samples taken from a shipment of the Kirkland Signature brand of basil pesto imported by Costco contained 0.1 milligrams per kilogram of ethylene oxide, exceeding the non-detectable limit. Ethylene oxide is a carcinogenic substance that can be used as a pesticide. The 674kg shipment of basil pesto would either be destroyed or returned to its country of origin, as is the procedure for all