The Wedding

11.21.08
As in all events, this one can never begin at the beginning of the day. Granted, I will not start with the engagement, because I still am unsure about the relationship of the bride and groom to my family or really to one another, nor will I begin with any sort of wedding event, because the most exciting start came with my brand new shirt.
The fact that my current host mom is a tailor has come in handy numerous times already. She fixed my sarong that was torn from too much vigorous activity with the boys, she tailored my pants that the weight loss had made unwearably huge, and she let me dig through her scraps and play with her sewing machine, which I sure many of you could guess, gave me endless enjoyment. The fact that she made me a beautiful shirt in the span of a day while also making some of the wedding clothes is nothing short of miraculous, though. And the shop is altogether entertaining as well. It goes something like this… I’m going to make you a shirt, so I have to measure you all over – raise your arms, lower your arms, hold this a minute, wow you’re big!, ok all done. Here’s your shirt! Try it on now (as we stand in the very public shop outside our home). Here’s the curtain to stand behind – no bras allowed. By the way, while you are being sheltered from the local men with the little curtain, the local women who are in any way connected to the shop are more than welcome to help judge the beauty of the workmanship. This of course happened, and I still don’t know the girl who watched me get down to almost nothing as I changed into my new shirt. I also didn’t expect to be felt up by both my host mother and my host grandmother as they discussed the cut of the shirt and how it felt. In the tailor’s shop…all rules are off (not that there are as many girl to girl rules as there are girl to boy rules…).
This second ‘shirt experience’ was pretty entertaining for me, mainly because my Khmer skills have dwindled with my easy access to English and my complete lack of ability to use the English with my mom and my grandma. Neither of them speak a word, but I’ve learned most of my pronunciation and grammar from them, so fair trade. It is also entertaining (and I’ll get to this more later) because of the length of time that we wear said fancy clothes.

Now the fun part…the pre wedding preparations. I am pretty certain that we are related to the bride, some aunt cousin twice removed or something…Khmer calls everyone uncle or aunt or big brother, so it is sometimes hard to say. But, we went over to the groom’s place to put a huge (huge) amount of fruit and vegetables and slabs of meat and noodles onto plates with saran wrap and pretty bows in preparation for the first part of the ceremony. The next morning, in our prettiest clothes and as my aunt caked a bunch of make-up on my face, we went back over to the same place, took a plate, and the procession of pretty girls in sparkling outfits of any color imaginable brought all of the groceries over to the bride’s nearby house with a light sprinkle of rain falling from above. We took a seat and listened to the wedding singer and local emcee sing a while, the groom and bride gave a selection of fruit to the parents, and then the equivalent of the flower girl and ring bearer performed a little skit with unwrapping some fruit and feeding it to one another. “It’s sweet,” and “It’s sour,” sort of like a Something Borrowed, Something Blue sort of tradition.
But then we got to change (after about an hour), back into cute normal clothes for the Hair cutting ceremony, where couples take turns fake cutting the bride and groom’s hair for good luck. I tried to ask if getting a hair cut is lucky on all occasions, but unfortunately, it is not. All of this takes place in the bride’s home, because the culture is matrilocal and generally the husbands move into their wives’ homes after the wedding.
And then a break, though we did return that evening for the “Bride Price Negotiation Ceremony,” which considerably more singing and music than discussion, once again in street clothes, though the bridal party had an outfit for each one of these separate ceremonies and even more than I saw. This ceremony was only notable for me because I got to play with some of the local instruments, and I met the jack of all trades of musicians, the man from the village who could play each of the instruments without hardly paying any attention.
The next morning there was more make-up, and more music, and more pretty clothes, and more people than I have ever seen in one place in this village. I had flowers in my prettily braided hair and my fancy new shirt on, and it appears that I was the belle of the ball (at 10 in the morning that is…). There was no ceremony to see, just the bride and groom and wedding party in yet another outfit, this one was red I think, and a lot of food and boose (at 10 in the morning that is…).
So I was seated at a table with a fellow teacher and a bunch of people who I didn’t know, including one woman that barely fit into her fancy shirt and who had this very distinct mole above her constant frown. The table with full with drinks of all kinds, the strange fruity things that the people here like as well as beer and whisky with soda. And then the meal began…appetizers with sugary peanuts and spring rolls with peanut sauce, some jerky-like pork, an entire fish that stared up at me while I explained over the blaringly loud music how little I ate fish back in the States, some stir-fry, and the grand finale: a portable electric stove with a volcano style pot complete with raw veggies and pork and a chunk of lard to cook it with…right in front of your eyes. It was absolutely delicious, and available for only $5, generously paid by my host family. Amid all of this, the waiters, or young guys most likely related to the family, the drink servers, young guys most likely related to the family, and the ice carriers, young ladies like my sister who are somehow related to the family, and the can carriers, young kids with string who go around and pick up all of the empties from the ground, are moving about in the grace of the Khmer people.
And while all of the women are trying to chat at the table and generally behaving and running the scene, the men are… (I just taught this word and about 5 adjectives to my co-teacher) getting sloshed. Lightweight is too generous a word to describe how quickly the alcohol affects them – I’ve decided that with the heat of the day, the organic food, and the fact that the majority weigh half as much as me, it’s to be expected, though I do find it unusual when 15 full grown men are dancing together on the dance floor, completely un-sober, at half past noon on a sunny Sunday afternoon. It’s even less likely to see them, plus a few others, push each other over for a chance to dance near me (which is only a slight, very slight, exaggeration of what actually happened). There was the one who sat just a little too close to me and begged for a dance throughout most of the afternoon, the one who offered me a drink every time I finished a dance circle, the one who, whenever he saw me, gave me a ‘heya pal’ tap on my cheek (highly inappropriate for this culture…), the one who barged in on my dancing with a girlfriend and practically fell over trying (Need I say that none of these men were in the ‘attractive’ age group?). But I had fun anyway, despite the adventure…I danced with my girlfriend, my sisters, my adorable cousin George, other members of the host family, and talked with a future English teacher at the school. It was all over, no more than a few hours of dining and dancing and drinking, even less for those who didn’t stay for the dancing part!
And after I had listened to the same song about 7 times at the 3 hour wedding celebration, I went home and heard it played from afar at least another 6 times. The song: I’m in love with a foreign girl.