Hey! Mr. Tambourine Man, play a song for me

So banquet #1 of 2 was last night and it was a busy night. This is the first time that I'm attending a wedding banquet at this particular hotel in the commercial heart of town so I did not know what to expect.

The ushering could have gone better... where would you sit a friend of both the bride and a relative of the groom? With the former group or the latter? Blegh. Those types of issues. Ultimately there were some tables that were really crowded, while others were extremely empty. Oh well.

The food was nothing to "write home" about. Standard islamic "halal" Chinese dishes being what they are, I was a bit surprised at the lesser quality of the food being served. Of course, cooking for a party of 500 is never an easy task, but nevertheless, from such an venerated establishment I had expected better. Oh well. I guess I do have high culinary standards.

The entertainment wasn't that great as well. My nieces and I were making fun of the singers at every opportunity we could. They were all acting so much like a zombie. At one point I walked up to the stage, grabbed the instrument from one of them and just played on with the rest of the band, upping the tempo much to the cheers (or was it jeers? I couldn't tell) of the friends and relatives below. People have told me that they really enjoyed the preformance.

There was the obligatory photograph session after all the food. Really though, people should just assign one or two camerapersons rather than the half dozen that we were faced with. Everyone it seems had a 6 megapixel camera on hand and wished to have a shot snapped where possible. Urgh. Next time I should start charging for posing during weddings for photographs.

The party died down almost after 11pm, which was early. The band stayed on to start the disco portion of the entertainment as the tables were cleared away from the "ballroom". I have had a long day and decided to head home with most of the "older folks". Ah well, one down, another one to go later tonight.

Tea and Some Party

Tea ceremonies are really really crazy, or at least that's what I've discovered today. That and the fact that there are a lot of food that gets served during these tea ceremonies, but I'm running ahead of myself.

Chinese tradition and superstition gets married with individual practices (and tradition and superstition) during a wedding and I think I've watched enough of it for a while to satisfy the paragon in me.

Long story short, or rather shortish... Groom goes to bride's house. Groom gets humiliated by bride's friends. Groom and bride return to groom's parent's house. Groom's parent's family hides as they enter the house. Wedding couple goes into room and gets to eat traditional soup balls.

Then it's the part where the tea ceremony is held. This is where the bride and groom serves tea to the "elders" and gets served tea by the "juniors" as a sign of welcome acceptance for the bride. I had to play a small part in this of course getting served some really weird tea... blech. This is also the part where the bride and groom is usually showered with gifts, usually gold. But I'm modern of course... they got cash from me.

Of course there was food everywhere and there was enough food for a small village to have breakfast AND lunch. And then of course, there was another reception at the newly-weds house, so in between my job as chaffeur, I had to make small talk with people. Hmmm...

There was a lull for most people in the afternoon, but my job had only begun. I had to decorate the tables for the sit down dinner in the evening at a restaurant in the heart of the commercial area of town. Ack... so it was off with my helpers to get the job done.

We were met there by the seating coordinator who was a bit displeased because the layout of the place was not as expected. Well, nothing to be done though since we were already busy making sure the tables were all set (with the help of the restaurant staff) complete with "party flavours". Well, it was a good thing I had lots of people to help, because we finished in record time.

There are always emergencies and I had to be the emergency-buster in the interim to ensure that things that needs to be done are done. It was totally hectic and crazy. And that's not counting the first of the formal receptions of the weekend. Eek!

Bachelor's Night?

Eep... this is the weirdest Bachelor's Night ever. For starters there were a huge number of teens and post-teens hanging around and secondly some of them brought over their spouses. So while the other guys were doing above 18 things (aka drinking, lewd-talk, gambling), someone had the fabulous idea for me to be in-charge of the underage activities. Sheesh, it was almost 2 different parties.

So I took lemons and made lemonade.

It ended up to be a huge game night for most people and we enticed most some of the non-teens, but I'm jumping ahead of myself.

The evening proper started with food as usual though, and it was mostly finger stuff although I know there were lots of alchohol all over the place. I was with the underage group though, so it was mainly coke and sodas for me, although I didn't even bother with those (at least not until later, but again, I'm going ahead of myself).

I was challenged to a game of Boggle by the groom's younger brother, so armed with a pen in hand, I began the game against a group of teens and pre-teens who were eager to score more than me. I played a total of 5 rounds, scoring with words like "theta", "mortal" and "timely". More surprising though, I could score with such simple words like "the" and "ask". Mainly it was just a huge big round of everyone else cancelling out each other and me coming on top with such weird words as "asp" (a type of snake) and "ion" (a charged particle). It wasn't really fun, so I decided to take a break after the 5th game. By that time though, there were a huge group of post-teens playing and I left the game in capable hands while I went for food.

I've already had dinner though, so I wasn't too peckish as I sampled the spring rolls, which was surprisingly good. I also ran around refilling beers for the "non-kiddies" who by now were smoking outside on the porch. I took the opportunity to chat with a few acquitances during my "food break".

By the time I got back to the table though, the game of Boggle was dying down because they decided it was no fun with me not playing. I played a last game with them and wiped the floor, figuratively speaking, after which they decided to give up playing Boggle. There was this newly-graduated English teacher who was rather upset that he was beaten by myself in a word game, but I guess that's how the cookie crumbles.

The Boggle crowd was getting a bit restless, and someone made a call for Uno Stacko, so after digging around a bit in the store-room (it was my brother's house, and I usually take such liberties as digging through the storage areas when I'm there without any shame or reprecussions) I found the game sans dice. I created a version where it could be played without dice and it all went well until the tower collapsed. It was fun.

By that time it was getting a bit late though and people were leaving. So the game of Uno Stacko ended. Meanwhile outside on the porch, the smoking/drinking crowd decided that it was time for some blackjack so packs of cards were supplied to them.

At the same time I was setting up the mahjong table for a 3 player game. One of the "outside" crowd, came in and (rather drunkenly) insisted on a game. I told him it was house rules which really discouraged him and he left to join the blackjack game that was progressing outside.

So it was me, the groom's brother and his brother-in-law on the table and we played a quick game of house rules mahjong (I was chided a few days later by my niece for not inviting her to play, but that's a different story). It is sorta a Hong Kong tradition to not sleep on the night before the wedding and to play mahjong the entire night (the Hongkies also do the same during a wake) and although that was not the intention that night, we did say we'll play till past midnight just for the fun of it.

A total of 2 rounds was played - i.e. in a 3 player game that's 6 "winds". I made the highest score that night in a round 2 game where I had 2 of the "winds", the "middle" and the "prosperity" and some scoring "flowers". It would have scored much higher according to Hong Kong rules I was told, but since we were playing with house rules, the score was lower.

There was a bottle of Absolut Vanilla (Vodka) lying around, so I made a cocktail with the last can of Sprite in the fridge. Of course, after I did that a huge crowd of hangers-on decided to do the same, but there wasn't any more Sprite, so they decided to do it with Coke (as in the soda, not the drug). It tasted horrible.

I won after the second round - we kept score with chips, although we weren't playing for money. By that time, most of the "inside" crowd has left and of the outside crowd, there were barely 8 people there. It was well after midnight as well when I left and in just a few hours, I had to be back for the wedding proper...

The goldilocks syndrome

Did I mention that there's another wedding coming up for me this year... well, not for me, but for me to attend anyways...

So, that meant I had to make sure I had the right threads for the occassion... no, not my wedding, to attend one of those chinese wedding ceremonies which will be an all day affair (or in this case, because it's the scion of a not-so-but-somewhat-important distinguished gentleman who has been "awarded" not once but twice by his majesty the sultan, a 2 day affair) - and by the word affair, I mean occassion and not something "extramaritial". I dug out my jackets from the closet (which was next to my tie rack, tambourine and guitar) and tried them on.

"This one is too big!", I exclaimed when I tried on the jacket I last wore at a wedding. I felt like a kid in his father's clothes. I guess I must have shrunk a lot. I should have paid more attention to my washing label - wash with warm water, do not bleach, do not dry clean, do not iron - or something like that. Either that or the jacket has decided to grow over the last few months. Blegh. Nope, can't wear that for the wedding.

"This one is too small!", I mused to myself as I tried on the 2nd jacket. It fit fine though, but there was some bunching at the shoulders and I think the shoulder pads on the jacket must have deformed somehow through the many months (or even years?) of storage in the closet. Urgh, nope, no can do.

And that's all the jackets I have of course... well, I do have a parka, but I'd be crazy if I wore that to the wedding...

So, where can I find a jacket and exclaim "This one is just right?". Watch this blog.

You cow?

Oooh... another wedding coming up this year... watch this space...

Cory & Jen's Wedding...

My online friend, Cory, just got married to his longtime sweetheart Jen. I didn't go all the way to the Pacific North West (which is an Ironic name as it's north-east of where I am now...) but here are some pictures...

And I just have to upload a picture of the riffraffs from Bliss. It's a bit abstract, but it's not too cerebral a place to hang out...

No more weddings...

Well, that's the last of the weddings for a while. I'll direct people to my other 2 blogs:

My CCG Workshop Blog
The MND at CCGW blog