The year our son graduated from college and wore his square cap, the whole family was very happy. The children suggested going to a photography studio to have a large color family portrait made.
“No need. We have a camera at home. Why go to a studio?” I did not really agree. We were working people. After laboring hard for a month, we earned only a few hundred dollars. A studio portrait would cost several hundred dollars.
“Let’s go, husband.” My wife’s sweet voice carried a little pleading. “Let’s take one proper picture. We didn’t even have photographs when we got married.”
“We’re already old. What is there to photograph?”
“Old? What do you mean old?” She grew anxious. “Once in a lifetime. You only get one life. We didn’t even take a wedding picture.”
Seeing that tears were about to fill her eyes, my heart softened. That last sentence she kept repeating opened a gap in my memory.
Yes. We had been married for thirty years, and indeed we had never taken a proper portrait together.
The year we married, society was promoting the movement to reform customs. When the leaders at my workplace learned that I was getting married, they urged us to break with old practices, avoid extravagance and waste, and hold a new-style wedding.
Both of us were overseas Chinese students whose parents were abroad. So the head of my laboratory acted as witness to the marriage and the workshop union chairman served as master of ceremonies. The wedding was held in the factory meeting room. No invitations were sent. No banquet was held. There were only some sunflower seeds and tea.
The groom wore his ordinary work clothes. The bride wore a clean old dress. The wedding ceremony took place amid the singing of revolutionary songs.
Who would have imagined that two days later the Yunnan Daily would report our marriage under the headline “A Wedding That Reforms Old Customs.” The Kunming Workers’ Cultural Palace copied the article onto its blackboard newspaper, and the factory propaganda troupe even turned our story into performance material for an entertainment evening.
We became news figures. Naturally, there was none of the romantic atmosphere of wedding photographs.
Unable to resist the children’s insistence and my wife’s repeated persuasion, I finally surrendered. I opened the wardrobe and shook out the suit I had bought in Hong Kong when we immigrated. My son tied a necktie around me as if fitting a collar onto a monkey, and I put on a pair of black leather shoes I had not touched for a long time.
“Clothes make the man, and a saddle makes the horse.” The whole family cheered.
“Ha! Dad looks like a movie star!”
My wife put on a blue dress with small white flowers and a sparkling pearl necklace. Although she was already past fifty, she still looked radiant.
I told the children, “Look at your mother. She really looks like a chairman’s wife!”
Our son sat in front, I stood behind him, and my wife and daughter stood on either side. Under the direction of the Japanese photographer, he adjusted this person’s collar, corrected that person’s posture, click-click, then ordered us to change places. He looked from left to right, came over from time to time, told one person to tilt the head slightly left and another to look in a certain direction. Under the strong dazzling studio lights, he clicked the shutter a dozen more times. By the time the photographer finally beat the drum and finished, the sweat inside my shirt had made it sticky.
After the family portrait, my wife and I posed again under the photographer’s direction. I stood while she sat; I sat while she stood. Click after click, we tried many arrangements. We also made up for the romance missing from our newlywed days and left behind photographs of our youthfulness.
A few weeks later, a thirty-six-inch color portrait in a carved black wooden frame hung in our living room. Relatives and friends who visited saw all of us smiling happily in the family picture and praised it.
“This photograph is wonderful. Where did you have it taken?”