This whole matchmaking process sounds very personal, very deep. Did you learn anything about yourself? Anything surprise you that you found out about yourself?
Yeah. I feel like everybody kind of knows physically what they're looking for and kind of like personality-wise what they're looking for. But the questionnaire, not only did it dive into morals and values, which I think are the things that really make for a long-term, long-lasting relationship, it really brought up some uncomfortable things. It even asks you, like, for example, "Is there an age limit for your match? Ethnicity? Like family background, is it okay if they had divorced parents?" It asks me questions that I have always known in the back of my head, but I've never had to confront it. Which is, explain your relationship with your parents and how has that impacted your relationship life. And I've always known that coming from a house that split when I was pretty young. My mom, my dad divorced.
I didn't realize how much of that actually impacted my dating life like it did until the question asked, "Are your parents divorced?" And I was like, "Oh, easy question." Answered, "Yes. They are divorced." And then it says, "Describe your relationship with your mom." And I was like, "Okay, that's a little weird." And I did. And the follow-up question, I remembered, was this: "Describe how that has impacted your relationship life." And I was like, "Whoa, hold on. We're getting a little deep here."
I love the process. I also am a big believer in processes. I believe in science, I believe in psychology, sociology, behavioral testing, and all that. We also had to go through a psych eval. That was a big thing.
There's just so much to it and they're doing it all for free. I was like, "Yeah, sign me up. I want to go."
One other thing I heard about you was that you were rather interested in having a wedding that reflected your culture. So could you tell me a bit about that?
So my family is kind of a weird mix between Chinese and Vietnamese. Both my parents were born in Vietnam. However, all four of my grandparents are Chinese from different parts of China. ... We consider ourselves Chinese. So I had actually ... asked for a Chinese tea ceremony in my wedding.
And we ended up doing Vietnamese tea ceremony, which is not that far off. It's just a little bit more glam. I'd asked for it and the producers asked for special wedding requests. And I definitely put that in there. I wanted something to showcase how my family handles weddings. Like everyone that's gotten married in my family, my generation, especially recently, had a little bit more toned-down tea ceremony.
But it's still a huge part of my family in the cultural aspect of it. So I listed out every detail. I even put the person to contact. One of my cousins Brian, he just got married. He was at my wedding. He and his wife did a tea ceremony, really chill. It's like maybe like 15 minutes. It honored all of our traditions, but it wasn't super extravagant or anything. It's more the meaning behind it. ... The whole idea of the tea ceremony bringing a new person into the family.
And so the tea party with my family, would be doing the ceremony to accept her into my family. And then vice versa. When I present tea to her relatives, they're basically accepting me as kind of a symbol of, "Yes, we accept you. We accept this tea from you, and we accept you as our son-in-law."
It's really important for that to happen in our family. And I made sure I wrote that. I listed out every detail — which people have to be there, how many teacups, and what order it'd have to go in because that order is also very important in Asian culture. Usually they do the eldest male first and then they go by age after that.
Well, that sounds really nice. Anything else you'd like to share?
I would just say this has been a really great experience. I loved every minute of it. It was something I never thought I would ever ... I would do, but when they reached out to me, I feel like I kept a pretty open mind.
And this has obviously worked for people in the past. I Googled it before I agreed to it. People have been happily married on this show before. And so going in with that trust of the process and just optimism, glass half full, I think if you go in with that in mind, you're going to have a great time. And yeah, this is a once-in-a-life opportunity, to get matched with the person that's going to be your forever person. I don't know how anyone could pass it up.
Season 13 of "Married at First Sight" launches July 21 on Lifetime.
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