Aug 27th, 2007
Featured on Zaobao
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This entry was first published on my wedding blog and I’m reproducing it here.
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My wife and I were featured on today’s Zaobao Fukan front page along with another 2 couples. It was a feature story on couples who married soon after graduation. There were a couple of mistakes in the article though, the most obvious one being my wife’s stipend being $1,500 to $2,000 weekly instead of monthly. I think it’s probably an honest mistake on the part of the reporter because it probably would have made no sense to anyone if the stipend is given weekly. Anyway, here’s the report:
Click on picture to enlarge
Reading about the other 2 couples, I suppose that young couples really have it tough. Money aside, people often wonder why the choice to get married so early. Some people might even think that it’s a shotgun marriage rather than a planned one. I suppose this are the consequences to face when you do things that are out of the norm.
I think the other two couples made two very good points which myself and Peiying agrees to wholeheartedly as well. The first is that life is unpredictable, and if we wait, we might never get the chance (touch wood but you never know). Secondly, family before career is something that we feel is important because the warmth of a family helps to provide a strong emotional support to ride through the rough waves of establishing a career.
I suppose not everyone agrees with such lines of thought but well, I think marrying early is really important because marrying late means that you will rush to have kids due to the biological clock ticking away. I think it’s better to enjoy a few years as husband and wife, understanding each other before the kids come because kids will definitely place additional stress on the family. It is important to have an emotionally strong bond between husband and wife before the kids come along, and for the strong emotional bond to happen, you need time to nurture it. So, if you are thinking about marriage, don’t wait! 
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agree with the last paragraph. it’s also nice to be able to play sports with your kids without feeling the athritis or the creaky joints.
i wonder if there are undergrad men (19-24 years old, not from the rich family type) who are married. or is that a socially inappropriate topic? there are still impediments for early marriage, a part of which is financial, in my opinion.
Aaron,
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Yes, I fully agree and support your decision to marry as early as possible. You really need a few years to lay the foundation and strengthen the bond between husband and wife.
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Courtship days are totally a different ball game. Once people officially become husband and wife, their attitude, behaviour, expectations and treatment of each other changed. Things that needed courtesy before magically and suddenly disappeared. Couples start to take many “minor” things for granted, especially the willingness and frequency of expressing love and concern to each other. They even shy away from saying sorry when mistakes are made. Moreover, financial burdens and requirements set in and become a routine business that you simply do not have a choice of trying to avoid them. And financial problems can be considered as one of the major contributions in the destruction of matrimonial blissfulness and harmony.
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So, always remember to generously express you love and appreciation to your wife and never overlook financial matters which may seem frivolous at the beginning at times.
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Well done, Aaron! Wish you all the best!
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The Garuda - 27 August 2007.
The last sentence of your second last paragraph reminds me of a comment by my dad that in the past it was ???? but nowadays the order’s been reversed to ????. I wonder what are the causes and effects of such a trend.
Finally, congratulations and best wishes to you and your wife!
Off-topic comment:
Has “The Campus Observer” changed its website or is it out of operations liao…?
I can’t seem to be able to access its website.
LCC,
campusobserver.org does seem to be down, even with a proxy. Firefox hangs with “waiting for campusobserver.org…” in its statusbar.
Aaron, speaking of tech, how’s your wireless card going with Linux? I could lend you a hand if you want. (Maybe fix a day for us to meet up and work on it?)
Hi LCC and Michaelk,
The domain campusobserver.org is down because of issues with the registrar. We have moved servers but it’s been a pain trying to settle the domain. We have a satellite site at campus-observer.org so you might want to check that out.
As for my Linux wireless, I gave up on the card and bought an Edimax dongle. Works like a charm now. I love Linux.
Well, considering that two of you have been dating for 8 years as seen in the article, i will consider that late instead of early…in fact, i feel that “early”/”late” should be define in terms of how long you have been in a relationship with the person instead of career paths (that is unpredictable and vary from individual to individual…)
Congrats on being married. 