Waigoren and Chinese Weddings

So the votes are in, there are only eight foreigners in all of Enshi: five Americans, one Japanese, one English and his Brazilian/Peruvian wife. I got to meet the English man and his wife for the first time yesterday. We, of course, met at the meeting of the foreigners hosted by the Chinese government. At the meeting we were herded into a room with forty Chinese. Three Chinese men gave Chinese speeches, and the rest of us ate fruit. After that, everyone had dinner. Thankfully, and I do mean thankfully, all the foreigners were allowed to eat together in a room with only two or three Chinese.

I say thankfully because public intoxication is encouraged in a formal dinner setting, to the point where if you don't get slammed they seem very disappointed. It spoils the fun I guess. I'm pretty sure it's what they live for. The Chinese have one favorite liquor: baijai (rice wine) which is around %50 alcohol. Foreigners can't stand the stuff but the Chinese love it. Since it was just the foreigners, nobody was getting drunk and nobody was being forced to drink baijai. Good times.

I also went to a Chinese wedding today. Don't get excited. A Chinese wedding is more or less a string of rituals rather than a ceremony. When arrived, the groom was carrying the bride on his back about a half mile from his house. Apparently he has to carry her a good distance for some reason, while his friends make the process as difficult and as embarrassing as possible. By the time he made it to the house, he was wearing nothing but his knickers. But he was still caring his wife. Never getting married in China, never.

And then we played cards for the next three hours while sitting in a room surrounded by all the close friends and family and it felt like something from my Big Fat Greek Wedding where we couldn't speak a word and we were out of place but we were the honored guest for two people we have never met and will never see again. And.

I just had a sudden onset of modernism. Sorry. All we did was play cards in this house full of Chinese people. And then we travelled to a fancy hotel to eat dinner. When we made it up the stairs to the second floor we discovered a huge room with three hundred Chinese all preparing to eat. There was a two minute introduction of the bride and groom and then we ate dinner. But this is the amazing part: when the Chinese finished eating they left. It was amazing! There was no flower throwing, garter throwing, dancing, cake cutting, cleaning, mingling, rice throwing, etc. Nobody was like "You know I'm such a good friend I should really stay for the rice-throwing, but I really just want to get the sam-hill out of here." Or "I don't know these people from Adam, should I really try to catch the garter?" We all know this, in America weddings how well you know the person directly correlates with how long you stay at the reception. Everyone gets cake and nobody cleans (unless you're family). In China, you eat and leave. Amazing. I love it.

Afterwards there was singing with close family and friends back at the house, but we decided to skip out on that.

Something funny (ok funny to me). Our university is pronounced Enshi Zhu Yuan. Zhu is pronounced "Jew" and Yuan is the for word college. However, yuan is also the word for money. So my college is pronounced Enshi Jew Money. Create your own punchline (I'm not anti-Semitic I swear, I've never even known a Jew. I love Jews. Dylan is a Jew, JC is a Jew [Jews also killed him, but we won't get into that], Phillip Roth is a Jew [I probably won't get a job because of this post one day], Robbie Robertson is half Jewish [I bet they're freezing my bank accounts right now], I just think it's funny).

More pictures tomorrow.

(Don't tell Mom.)

"I'll see you in the morning if nothing happens."