A Parent's Wedding

Read a piece about a girl who had to attend her cousin's wedding. The wedding was held at some archaic Chinese restaurant whose mouth yawns open daily to artificial rocks, probably waitresses in cheongsam and prides itself on its "traditional" fare of shark's fin and abalone. (Haha really traditional fare probably be fish! and meat! and lots of veggies! What luxuries they were then!)

Waitresses in cheongsam might look like this! 

The bride's mum trekked to Chinatown and got the young couple a tam tui (chamberpot or potty). The Chinese one looks sort of like a fat vase the size of your butt and comes with intricate designs like a cockerel or flowers or some scenic Chinese drawing. The last time I used that was when I was 5 when I was too short to let myself out of the bedroom in the middle of the night. Wonder how my parents can stand the smell of ammonia right in the room where they sleep. The last person I saw using one was my grandma. Hers was full of urine and phlegm. I stayed far, far away. My paternal grandma and our family didn't get along very well. To put it simply, we didn't like her and she didn't like us. Too bad our other not so responsible relatives thought the same. So my family and an aunt's had to take turns taking care of her.

To me, she was a representation of everything I hated about the old Chinese: sexism (she wanted to name my sister dai di which stands for "bring brother"), mindless traditions (if you're born in the year of the tiger, you can't attend the funeral or enter the bride's room), hierarchy (the oldest person in the household is practically king; mother-in-laws get to bully daughter-in-laws; my grandma seems to think this applies to her except she's so old she can't remember much so her advice were pretty much useless but she would insist on people following it). By association, the fragile tam tui became a container for all evils, a Pandora's box waiting for the unsuspecting victim of blind tradition.

Generally, I love tradition. They are beautiful things that have characterized my childhood. Folding red packets to decorate the house on Chinese New Year; staying up till midnight on chuxi (the night before Chinese New Year) to welcome the new year (see, chinese also have countdowns). Children staying up till midnight on chuxi is supposed to be a blessing bestowed upon their parents, wishing that they will live a long (and fulfilling) life; lighting candles and lanterns during Mid-autumn festival; eating ba zhang (Chinese dumplings (?)) during duan wu or Dragon Boat festival which commemorates Qu Yuen; dong zhi (winter solstice) when mum and I would make plates and plates of pink and white tang yuan ; I'd wake up at 7am for qing ming so I could go with my parents to pay respects and tidy up the graves of our ancestors; not forgetting the hungry ghost festival which is the only time I ever get snacks when I was young!

Those were some of the traditions I would love to preserve. Others like the silly chamberpot can pretty much suck my balls. But the entry really got me thinking about my own planned-to-be-nonexistent wedding. Yups, no wedding dinner, no wedding ceremony, maybe not even a white wedding gown.

I did find another dress I wouldn't mind wearing for my wedding though. 

I thought about the various day long affairs when my cousins got married and how very, extremely bored I was. Being a bored and tired bride isn't exactly my day of fun. Paying a bomb to be bored is pretty much asking me to jump off a building. Paying a bomb to be bored, make small talk with relatives I hardly care about AND feeding them shark's fins is pretty much like a "Kill me now" message. I can think of so many other ways to spend that money: renovating my house, having a lavish honeymoon, luxurious dinner for close family and friends, making a bigger downpayment on the house, buying myself pretty things that I can wear for more than one night... the list pretty much goes on and on and on.

Most women think of wedding as their one big day. In America, brides-to-be starve themselves silly to look good for that day. Planning a wedding is a 2-3 month affair and everything looks Hollywood wedding wannabe. I personally don't particularly care about being fawned over with the customary "You look pretty". Every bride is pretty as far as I'm concerned. Given my lack of interest in a lavish affair, some might wonder if I had gone through some trauma. After all, every little girl yearns for her own wedding. I guess I'm just not every other girl. Me and my sister had never played bride and groom when we were young. I didn't even really care to get married until I met darling. And as I said, weddings bore me. It's pretty much something I attend out of sheer need and petulantly think every other minute "Are we done yet?" I've yet to attend the wedding of a close friend so maybe those are better.

But while I plan my spartan ( and sacrilegious) wedding, I have to worry about my parents. For the Chinese, a wedding is pretty much not for the children but for the parents. Think of the newly-weds as the centerpiece, placed on some pedestal and displayed to relatives. The parents, want to proudly show relatives "Look at how well my child has married". Or they are expected to show it. If we didn't have a wedding, it might be construed that we married badly or in disgrace (like having a pre-marital fetus in tow). I don't know, I could go along with the whole ugga-wugga to make them happy; on the other hand, parents just want their child to be happy so perhaps I should do things my way? What do you guys think, would you want a traditional Chinese wedding or a walk down the aisle or both?