hi all,
well, we only have good news, the big day, the one that i tried so desperately tried to keep small and quiet came off without a hitch, everyone quite accepted me and there were no last minute nightmares, no flare ups of cultural differences, no guns drawn, and Roongs entire family quite embraced me. I nightmare averted.
the day started off with a series of rituals, which were told to me step by step...i was picked up at 8 am buy her..uncle...who i might add was on his best behavior, due in part to a reprimand by roongs mother to keep his mouth shut, he took me to roongs aunts house just a few doors down from roongs moms place, there i sat as the ritual of placing candy and oranges, special oranges, on platters, 4 to be exact, 6 oranges and one 20 pound sack of candies on each ( interesting footnote to this..the day before the wedding i had to go to the dr cause i started to run a fever and very sore throat( rung had the same hting, she went in the Morin) and i was prescribed 5 different meds, including antibiotic, a cough med( i had no cough) antihistamine, decongestant, and something for pain and fever), so, ( the night before the wedding, about 40 pounds of oranges and the 4 sacks of candy were dropped off at my hotel for me to bring to the wedding the following day)(also part of the "ritual", now, feeling ill, i saw oranges, i thought to myself..wow...good old fashon vitimum C, so lets have one...mmmm...so sweet..so good...hit the spot...)so...there we all are at roongs aunts house...i am watching them place the oranges on each platter, the sacks of candies, and there seems to be an issue..the issue of the missing orange....crisis averted when after about 15 minutes of orange searching, one was found and finally placed in the last tray.....then....the ritual of gathering the 4 trays carried by cousins to follow me to roongs house, walking, i was instructed not to take off my shoes when i entered the home( this is always done, except when accepting delivery of a bride) and to sit in a special chair....in that chair i sat for about 30 minutes until all the other rituals were ready,
the next step..after sweating like a rat in a Bangkok cellar was to pass threw 2 sets of people holding golden chains, this is done by bribing them with pink envelopes filled with cash ( who said there were no new york influence in asia) at which point, after the bribing of family members holding the chains is complete, i am allowed to go upstairs and collect my bride. upon bringing her downstairs, she is to have one last breakfast with her family, sort of symbolic farewell, this is our last meal together breakfast consisting of 10 different dishes( none of which roong likes) and with me sitting off to the side of the table..the next step was to collect her..and bring her back to my wonderful hotel for a blessing on my home from the budda, now, since all residence here have two items in every home, one is a picture of the king, and the other is a "spirit house", those are the little buddist shrines you always see in chineese resturants( now i know what they are for), our spisit house is at the end of the parking lot in the hotel..so about 10 of us went, roong and I did the old kneel to great budda pray thing, then it was back to roongs mothers house for the final step..
this involves serving her parents tea, now i never even mowed the lawn for my folks, but here i was made to kneel to her parents and serve them tea, then, each aunt and uncle, but only kneeling for the parents,, after this whole thing, it was done..she was mine...mind you..it took 4 hours for it to be done..it was done...we went back to the hotel where both of us slept for 2 hours before the reception.....
the reception was done at a little restaurant off a main street, we took the whole place, and we were expecting about 100 people, for that is the number of family friends that were told to me about 4 days before the wedding, mind you i demanded in the beginning to roong that no more that 40 people, keep it family only, but this is Thailand, and for a people who have never been colonized by western powers they were about to submit to my piny little demands, so..it went from 40..to 60..to 100, all in all about 60 showed...it was a simple event, no big flower arrangements, no big dancing by a d.j. and none of the nauseating speeches by drunken family members or friends...( i saw to it that no alcohol was served), the one carnal rule i had that were no special pink flower arangemts made, i told her flowers by the front door were fine, as long as they weren't pink, i hate pink, brings out rage in me...no clue why..but it does, its like showing a peace flag to pat Buchanan, anyway, as you will see when i am able to post the pictures, all the family and friend pictures were shot under a canopy of pink flowers and ribbons strung over the front door of the place, much like the nazi's used to hang there little symbles out of windows and over doorways..arugh...
well, the food was food, at least the restaurant listen to me on that one...my friends chieko and her husband mark both showed up and i was very grateful to them, it was more English i spoke with them than i have in the last two weeks, it was great to be able tot sit at my own wedding and smile threw conversation without having wondered what was being said...there was no wedding cake, that's a western tradition, and in the heat of bangkok you will not find a wedding cake that isn't a monument to gelatin. as soon as i can i will star to post pictures of all this..but as usual, the wireless here is about as reliable as any presidential candidate telling the truth, any truth