LAST night, I was sitting at one of the 32 tables at a neighbour's youngest daughter's wedding. Since I have known her since she was 18 (now 30), I felt it was almost obligatory to grace the occasion with my eminent presence.
As with all Chinese wedding dinners, on the invitation card, it says 7pm sharp. So I was there at that appointed time. Nothing happened for the next one and a half hours. I was just sitting there chatting with another neighbour who was actually quite relieved I had showed up because he doesn't know anybody there, including the bridegroom who earlier accosted him at the entrance because both did not know each other.
The matter was resolved when my friend said he's a friend of the bride's family. As with most modern Chinese wedding dinners, the normal run of things involves about eight to nine dishes. The last one is usually dessert.
The "four seasons" signaled the beginning of the wedding banquet, so to speak. It didn't stir anything in me. It was supposed to be a "cold dish" and it left my senses cold. Terribly unexciting, I thought.
Chinese folk are a demanding lot. When they show up for a wedding dinner, they have already harboured a preconceived notion of how the dishes would be like. So anything less than their expectations, the host and hostess will get a thumbs down verdict.
At this time immediately after the first course, our thumbs were pointing downwards. Apparently, the restaurant supervisor or captain did not synchronise the delivery of the dishes, thus the second dish almost didn't make it to our table.
I was thinking for a country golf club restaurant, the planning is pretty slipshod and the catering was substandard. Apparently, it didn't strike us that we were primarily there to celebrate the happy occasion with the newly-weds.
Most of us were there mainly for the food and if we can, have some fun with friend. That is if they are not sitting too far from our table.
Then, there is the mandatory "cheers" sessions. The wedded couple would go from table to table to greet the guests. Last night, in order to save everybody some trouble, the families, the newly-weds and their immediate relatives were on stage to bid everyone a big "yam seng". That's the Chinese style of saying "cheers", except that the Yam Seng toast involves a lot of loud shouting and prolonged train of voices from everybody until it ended in a gigantic climatic SENGGGGG!!!
One middle-aged guy at my table obviously had one too many and started to become quite boisterous. His sister came over to offer him some timely advice, in case he made a fool of himself. I know this chap. He's rather pleasant on most days when he's not drinking. In fact, he a quiet chap. Well, not last night. He started to lose his inhibitions after the three drink and began uncharacteristically friendly.
Most Chinese men can't hold their drink. Three glasses of liquor down the road, their faces looked as if they have been in the hot sun for about five hours. At Chinese wedding dinners, the prized drink is the brandy, of which the supply is plentiful - normally.
All of us know it's not good to consume too much of this potent drink on a single night but Chinese wedding guests are usually suicidal on grand occasions like last night. Their livers take a fantastic beating but they don't really care. What a strange community.
The music was a little too loud. My friend who was seated next to me, told the waiter to have the music toned down. He must have made his request at least three times to no avail. Later on, the choice of music slipped into the 80s tunes, much to our relief. We are no longer spring chickens anymore. Some of us can actually develop migraine in the face of relentlessly loud music.
As the night wore on, the dishes began to slip from table to our mouths. I found the dishes on a so-so level. Nothing much to write about to the folks back home and bragged about.
Women I know who normally don't wear dresses showed up in them. So I treated that phenomenon with great respect and delight. These days, working women like to wear their pants too much. Dresses are becoming passe.
The speeches by best friends from both parties, bride and groom, regaled the large crowd with unheard-of stories about their married colleagues in their younger days. It was nice to see these people were having the time of their lives.
However, the female MC was giggling endlessly like a little girl. I concluded after a while that she had one brandy too many because she was wandering all over the place verbally. Anyway, she was having a great time with the mike and her laughter was rather infectious. Most of us knew she was slightly tipsy.
I surprised the other guests at my table by confessing that I am a teetotaller. How strange, they thought. They had me figured out to be a world class boozer! And I was sipping Chinese tea the entire evening.
The dinner promptly came to an end around 11pm. Afterwards, the bridegroom promised everybody that the evening would proceed with a party, but we didn't want to proceed anymore. Our bellies were full, our ears were still ringing from the overly loud decibels from the mighty speakers and it was close to bedtime.
Thank God, my wedding is now just a distant memory and I don't remember creating half as much noise as the modern couple. As I walked out of the door to thank the hosts, I silently wish the newly-weds all the luck in the world. I recall about five years ago, I was at another wedding, enjoying the evening's programme.
That marriage didn't even last three years. Modern couples - they are good at organising interesting wedding dinners but some of them have apparently forgotten that they have to put in the same amount of effort, if not more, into their marriages to make them successful.
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