ZHANG HUA MIN: I had this dream when I was still with my ex-boyfriend. I dreamt we got married, I had a beautiful wedding dress, I took his arm and we walked into the church. In fact I was really eager to get the agreement from both his and my parents. We had been together for six years, and our parents had been against us all that time. So I was really happy to have that dream, that we got married, in such a beautiful place, and with the blessing from our parents, relatives and friends. But the reality was that we couldn’t get together. He is a nice person.
    He is the youngest child of his family, he has a brother and a sister, they are more than 10 years older than he. The reason my parents are against us is that his family situation is quite difficult. Only his father has a job, his mother is staying at home, and they don’t have a house, that’s what my parents are against. But we loved each other and the stronger my parents were against us, the more I wanted to be with him. Later there were some conflicts between us. The Chinese say that the seventh year is a threshold. We had been together for six years and then we had a fight because he had hurt a friend of mine. I couldn’t accept that and I wanted to break up. We did break up actually but he wanted to save our relationship, after all we had been together for more than six years. He took me to work every day in the morning and picked me up in the evening. I wanted to get rid of him so I lied to him, I said I had another boyfriend now and he should find himself another girl and marry her. After all, he is 3 years older than I.
    He got married two years later. He got engaged on May 25, just three days before my birthday. He still remembered my birthday and he came over to greet me. I was happy that he would get married soon, after all he is much older than I. Also, his family always wanted him to get married and have a child, so I congratulated him and I felt really happy for him. But when he really got married I felt quite sad. We had spent a long time together. We hugged each other and cried. Now when I think back, this situation is actually not so bad. We are still on contact with each other, that’s enough for me. Although we can’t be together, at least we keep up the friendship. That’s good.