During the week, we had another great Taiwanese experience: a traditional local wedding to attend. We both were locked away in meetings till 5 p.m., so barely had time to get home and changed before braving the peak hour traffic for a ride downtown to the “Amazing House”, which is actually the name of the wedding venue! The trip itself was a hoot as we had to trust the taxi driver’s little idiosyncrasies in taking various shortcuts to get there…I reckon I knew a better way, but I trusted the expert.
Our landlord of some nine years, Mr. Lee, lives on the second floor of our apartment block, directly below us. For the majority of that time, and especially before my still rudimentary Chinese skills improved, we dealt almost exclusively with his older daughter, Linda, whenever little issues arose. She would often turn up unannounced at the most inconvenient of times and settle in to talk at great length about nothing much at all. These days, mercifully, I am usually able to converse with Mr. Lee directly and cut out these extra sessions of English language practice! Linda, did however, help us a lot over the years, so we were quite delighted to accept her invitation to the wedding party.
Party it was, as Linda and her husband Jim had been married on the very auspicious date of 01.01.2011 in a registry office somewhere we suspect. The wedding party was the extravaganza afterwards. Our first task was to ascertain how much money we should put inside the traditional “red envelope”, the wedding present of cash that is the norm here. After consulting various local friends and colleagues and getting different answers (!), we decided to go with the luckiest numbers (very important apparently!), avoid any numbers that sounded like the word “death” (four), and basically go big. We thought we couldn’t lose. Next, what to wear? There were no directions on dress, so Cass dressed “mid formal” and I just decided to wear what I usually wear to work. Ended up being a good choice…we were in the mid range I reckon.
Upon arrival, Mr. Lee was very excited to see us and we were ushered back to an anteroom where Linda and Jim and close family were having photos taken. We both felt a little embarrassed until Mr. Lee led us to a table and left us alone! The hall was decorated quite sumptuously and satin and bows and flowers were the order of the day. A slide show of shots featuring Linda and Jim was on high rotation a couple of giant screens and they were classic. As is the fashion here, the bride and groom get most of their wedding shots taken pre-wedding in various romantic locations and in various formal and informal outfits. We were treated to shots against railway cars, dangling bare feet in water and cuddling of teddy bears along with a couple of rather strange ones with faux snow in the background…Taiwan?!
The reception itself was also full of wonder for us. The bride and groom entered through a gaudy flowery arch to various English pop songs all about love, some of them slightly weird and inappropriate! They had various choreographed roles to perform, all announced and commentated upon by the MC who was a paid employee of the reception hall. There were no speeches, but a succession of delicious expensive Chinese courses was served at regular intervals. Cass was fascinated how they all arrived at once, fresh and piping hot, for over 200 people: it was a mighty feat! There was orange juice and some rather rough red wine, which became more palatable after the third glass I discovered! The people at our table, in fact every other table as well, were all Chinese and spoke just Chinese. We were a very strange curiosity!
Instead of throwing a bouquet, Linda invited all the single women on stage to take part in a particularly strange ceremony where they seemed to grab hold of a streamer and she grabbed the other ends. We couldn’t figure out if it was the last or the first to break the streamer, but one twitterpated young woman was dutifully nominated as the next probability to become married. Very soon after this, the wedding entourage did a quick circuit of the room, stopping at each table to toast and be photographed and filmed. When the MC did her chatter at the end of this it was time to go! We got a quick shot in front of the arch with the happy couple, were given a very large box of “Gorgeous Romance” wedding cookies (yes, really!) and away we taxied home.
Great fun, but not as good as this decadent week ahead is shaping up to be….