« Yakult Swallows Triumph | Main | Initial Tutu Fitting »
June 14, 2005
Derrick and Chikako's Wedding
(more pix of Derrick and Chikako's Wedding)
I think everyone has a Vicarious Friend. Someone who lives a life you judge as more glamourous than your own. Someone who can live out your fantasies for you. This can be very valuable because it's often a bit of a pain to live an adventurous glamourous life. Changing countries as often as you change your socks takes some organisation and poses certain inconveniences. Will one's collection of porcelain ballerinas survive the journey? Who will look after the giraffe? Will they have toothpaste in the new country? It's nice when other people live that life for you and you can just listen to their stories and pretend to be them.
For me, Derrick was that Vicarious Friend. We've been friends since we were both 13. For most of our adult lives he has worked as doctor in various emergency departments around the world. He did a residency somewhere in Africa. He worked with Medecins sans Frontiers in Afghanistan. He's worked in the Middle East, the South Pacific, and, now, Beijing.
Even when he was in Canada he had a practice in Prince George which might not sound too exotic to anyone from B.C., but to the rest of the world you can sell it as the ragged frontier of the Canadian wilderness -- a romantic logging town filled with colourful characters, harsh weather, and beautiful landscapes. Just don't mention the smell from the pulp mills.
More importantly, he was my good-looking, charming, single, globe-trotting doctor friend. Whenever I encountered a lonely female who complained there were no worthwhile men in the world, I would hook them up via email with Derrick. Nothing tangible ever came of these liaisons. It's difficult to make a relationship work across several thousand miles when neither of the parties have actually met. But I do believe it provided a pleasant diversion for the people involved, and made me feel I was providing a useful service.
A couple of months ago, I received a terrible shock. Derrick was married! Not only that, he had married a woman I had never met before, AND he married her on my birthday. How heartless could the man be? Didn't he care about MY feelings? Didn't he worry how this would affect MY life? Apparently not. There was only one thing to do. Go meet the woman myself. Make sure it wasn't all a hideous mistake.
Her name is Chikako. She is Japanese and they decided to hold a proper Shinto wedding in Tokyo with family and friends. (They haven't said this out loud, but I'm pretty sure the reason for the second ceremony was to avoid future conflicts between their anniversary and the birthday of yours truly.) Anyway, whatever the reason, the wedding was planned and invitations were sent out, including (thankfully) one to me.
And so off I flew to Japan.
Fortunately, as soon as I arrived I saw the problem. Chikako is irresistible. She is more beautiful than Derrick. She is more organised than Derrick. She's sexier than Derrick. She is nicer than Derrick. She is funnier than Derrick. And she speaks far better Japanese than he ever will. The only thing he actually has on her is height. And, really, a pair of stilts would fix that.
It was also painfully obvious they were head over heels in love with each other. The give away was that they both wept like babies when they tried to read speeches to each other's parents at the reception.
So this presented a good news, bad news scenario for me. The good news was that 30 seconds after meeting Chikako I could see the whole thing was pre-ordained and the right decision for both of them. She is, after all, a good-looking, charming, single, globe-trotting, business analyst woman. So now I was free to relax and enjoy the wedding. The bad news was that it was obvious that Vicarious Derrick was gone. Well, in some ways he's still there, but now he is Married Derrick. And I'm already happily married. I don't need him to live that life for me. I'm perfectly happy with my own real-life version of marriage and conjugal relations and sharing breakfast in bed in front of a stargate dvd. I already have my own gorgeous charming wife and have had for years. In fact, I wonder if I was ever Vicarious Married Guy to his Lonely Bachelor Dude.
Posted by YandaMan at June 14, 2005 7:41 AM
Category:
Japan
