Definitely the most culturally different was the last wedding - indeed Asian traditions are much more difficult to understand.
So, we were invited to attend a dinner for a Chinese wedding. First challenge was to find a suitable present - who knows what is appropriate to give? After asking some friends around, we decided to settle for a real present, not simply giving money. We chose a nice set of exclusive Chinese teas.
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| The wrapping looks more Christmas'y then wedding like, but oh well... Who cares about the style when in Myanmar? :) |
I didn't know much if at all about Chinese weddings before. So once we got to the dinner place, I could already feel the difference - there was a huuuge amount of cars parked next to the resto. Lots of people were attending the event.
There was a reception desk for presents. We gave ours and got back this nice card with a Ferrero Roche chocolate candy :)
We were promptly lead to our VIP table (yes, it had a sign VIP on it :) In the middle of the round table there was a rotating plate - nice invention for getting shared food on your plate. You simple rotate the serving plate to reach it, no need to bother your neighbor.
When I saw the menu, I was surprised to see the amount of dishes to be served - 10! As far as I remember, there were all sorts of meat (bhew!) - chicken, duck, beef; one dish of fish; only one complete veggy dish (I was surprised to see not much of veggy since they eat a lot of them in China); rice; steamed breads; desert.
Normally the dinner should start at 6 pm, but since people were gathering slowly, it started at 7 pm. There were around 600 guests in total.. Probably the biggest wedding I've attended. And apparently me and three other people were the only foreigners in the room.
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| 600 guests |
I was anxious to see the bride and the groom; they finally showed up around 7 pm right before dinner. They actually changed their outfits twice - appearing in white at first and then changing into pink and grey.
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| Couple with their parents |
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| Singing a love song. |
There were some traditional games and a bit of performances, but since everything was in Burmese and Chinese, we couldn't really get the meaning of everything. But it was fun to watch.
Then the dinner started. We were served the dishes one after another without any time for a small break. While eating we could enjoy the karaoke performance of the friends of the couple - apparently it is a normal practice to invite friends to entertain the guests instead of professional musicians. Since most of the food were meat I couldn't eat everything, and even though I was super stuffed with food in the end. I was surprised that the rice was served in the very end right after dessert.
The dinner lasted for 2 hours. Right after dessert was served and eaten, people started to leave. Actually some of them were leaving even before that. I was surprised - aren't there going to be any party? Apparently not; it's a normal tradition to have just a dinner. People are fed and happy with that. They don't need a crazy party till 3 am. So people were disappearing super fast; it looked like someone gave them a signal to leave.
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| People were leaving with a 'speed of light'. Only some of them were still chatting for a while with each other. |
We waited for a bit and also left. We went back home walking (it was just half hour walk for us) and probably got home faster than most of the guests: there was a huge traffic jam in front of the resto since everyone came by car and was trying to get out. It reminded me people rushing to their cars after musical concerts.
