Last week Ariel got married! She invited me to the wedding, and as it turns out I was the only one at our school to go. The other Chinese teachers had to work too early to be able to come (they start at 2pm, I started at 5:30pm, and I only just made it back in time), and Ivy couldn't get time off from her other job. However, the wedding was not lacking for people - there were over a hundred by my (extremely poor) estimate.
I woke up at a ridiculous time in the morning, and in the relative warmth of my apartment decided that this was as good an occasion as any to wear my suit. Walking to the bus stop at a cold, sunless 6am, however, made me wonder if it was such a good idea after all; standing there waiting for Ariel's sister-in-law to pick me up made me decide that no, it wasn't so clever. However, I got to the hotel Ariel was staying at, and so it was okay.
At the hotel I first saw Ariel in her wedding dress, and she was very beautiful. Don't just take my word for it:
The groom (I still have a hard time remembering Chinese names, and I've forgotten his) met her at the hotel room, and there was a quick and frantic search for the shoes - they'd been hidden behind my seat earlier. It's tradition, I think, to hide the shoes to stop the bride from being able to leave. The groom carried her from the hotel room to the car, but not without incident - they fell down the stairs! Ariel came away unscathed, but the groom sported some impressive bruises and grazes on his foot and arm. There were the customary firecrackers outside, along with a five-piece brass ensemble that piped up whenever it seemed appropriate.
The wedding itself was held at the groom's parents' house, which turned out to be a pretty big two-storey house in a small country village. By the standards of Chinese city apartments, the house is immense; it's only because it's so far from the city that they're able to have such a large house (or just a standalone house at all, for that matter). The ceremony was just around the corner from the house:
In the background is the dining area. I'll come back to that later. Most of the people there are behind me, so you can't see them all. Since the last shot was from behind, once again, the bride and groom:
In the background is a stage with the same five-piece band that were at the hotel.
I didn't understand anything the minister in charge of the ceremony said, but there wasn't a lot of standing around at the ceremony. Ariel and the groom were always doing something, whether it was lighting incense, giving their respective parents glasses of wine, or pinning corsages to each other:
This was one of the funnier and more bizarre customs:
If you can't work it out, those are the groom's parents. The one with soot on his face (another custom, or simply a practical joke by one of the other guests, I don't know) is his father, the one trying to get away is his mother. The others are trying to put that rope - tied to a cabbage - around them both. Don't ask me what it means, but the struggles were amusing!
Then there was the exchange of rings, with the customary "oh crap where did I leave the ring" search by the groom:
Where did he leave the ring? It was already on Ariel's finger!
Then, Ariel asked me to get up and make a speech. I was the only one to make a speech at the ceremony; I felt very honoured. The minister gave me the microphone, and I ended up making a fairly short speech. I can't make long and memorable speeches, but I told Ariel what a great friend she was and how happy I was for her, and nearly cried in the process.
The speech was in English, of course, and since I was the only foreigner there, and maybe three people at the wedding could speak enough English to understand me, Lily translated for the benefit of everyone else at the wedding.
After the wedding, I took a few more photos. Here's Ariel and her dad in the back yard of the house:
And here are the couple with the groom's side of the family:
Later, Ariel changed from her western-style wedding dress into a traditional Chinese dress. Here she is, along with some of her old vocational school students, and me, in a group hug:
This last picture is Ariel and an unknown but very stylish foreigner:
After all the photos I went for a walk with Lily and the rest of Ariel's old students, and by the time we came back it was time for lunch. This was held in the pavilion behind the wedding ceremony, and this is where my estimate of the number of guests comes from: there were twenty tables, and each one seating eight people. I don't know if they all filled up, but certainly more than half did.
Lunch was seven kinds of awesome. Although most Chinese food is served as a series of dishes in the middle of the table, with each person having their own bowl of rice, this lunch was exactly like that - just without the rice, since there was so much food that no-one needed it. I don't remember much about the cold dishes (equivalent to the entrée), but the hot dishes were great. There was roast chicken, roast beef, duck, rice pudding, and the most delicious, fattening thing you have ever heard of: slices of pig fat. This dish is just slices of the fat layer of pork, cooked until it is soft, jelly-like, and sweet, and served with green vegetables.
They also served baijiu, which I've mentioned before - although often translated as "white wine", it's really a clear spirit more similar to vodka, with a 50% alcohol content. I had a little, only intending to keep it as a little, but Ariel's grandfather kept refilling my cup, and three separate people came around the tables giving everyone a drink. The result was that before lunch was over, I was a little drunk. Not too much, fortunately, but enough to make me stagger when I tried to get up and go. Later I worried that I would still be drunk, or smell of baijiu, when I went to work later that day, but fortunately it wore off. I think I slept most of it off on the bus ride back.
I took the bus back with Lily and her friends, and I really can't help that every time I see Lily I fall for her just a little bit more. Only a little, but a little is enough. I talked to Ariel about it, and she had something to say that's right on the nail: I give up very easily. If someone doesn't show interest in me I won't show interest in them; I keep myself protected, so that I won't get hurt. If I want to accomplish something, if I want to find someone, then I need to put myself out there. I need to accept that maybe the other person won't return my feelings. You know, the whole "it's better to have loved and lost..." spiel. She's right, at any rate. It made things a whole lot clearer for me, and so I'm not going to be so passive anymore, and despite the problems (and there are a few, mostly to do with Lily being a fair bit younger than me), I'm not going to sit back and hope for someone to smack me in the face and say "I love you": I'm going to chase after Lily, and do something active for once.
It's going well so far. I'm taking her to lunch today, although events have been conspiring against me. I lost my phone yesterday - or more likely, it was stolen on the bus. I got a new one so that she would be able to call me today to tell me when she is available, but last night I was told Ivy and I need to present our passports to the local police station, today, at 2pm, which doesn't leave much time for lunch on the other side of the city. Fortunately I've pushed that back to 3pm; now I just have to hope Lily is available earlier, rather than later. I'll take her to Pizza Hut (I know, it doesn't sound that romantic, but I swear, Pizza Hut is a far more up-scale establishment in this part of the world) and give her flowers.
Right now, though, I'm frozen, and can't feel my fingers anymore. Goodbye!
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