Phew. Well, we leave for Vietnam early tomorrow morning. We're packed (aside from a bit of drying laundry), have all our travel docs and foreign currency in order, and the name of the hotel we'll be staying at the first night. We haven't lost anything since we packed, and I minimized my gear to a manageable weight. Got some stylish new Merrell hikers for my birthday and we're off to a month of adventure.
But not too much adventure, I promise, mom. And no street food. The last thing we want is a Shanghai repeat. Honestly.
The lead-up to this trip has been hectic: one hour off during business hours each day, and lots to get ready because ... yes, we left it all to the last. Some things, however, were out of our control. A wedding date, for instance ...
A British teacher at The School invited us to her Korean wedding with Ja-in. (A second wedding, the British version for her family, will take place in the spring. Coworkers replaced family for the Korean version and Ja'in's family dominated attendance 200:8) Jon wasn't able to make it because he was working, meaning that he missed quite an experience.
Now, let me explain what I've heard about Korean weddings. See, I've only been to a couple of weddings in my life; former employees of my parents, my uncle Jeff and aunt Alison's wedding, and the dozens of less significant weddings I 'attended' as a banquet server. (Thank you to the Glen Cairn golf course for invaluable serving experience - I wouldn't have understood the commercial side to a wedding without you. My goodness those bills were big.)
But Canada's wedding scene doesn't compare to the assembly-line weddings I've learned about from my students. I expected to be one of 600 guests at Gemma's wedding, which, students told me, would probably last only a few hours. As I was cautioned by other teachers who have been invited to the weddings of their students, I heard the next wedding party in the hallway while the ceremony was taking place. Here, it seems, wedding halls are more like couple factories.
And you thought package deals in Canada were predictable ...
Exhibit A: Wedding invitations. Straight from the wedding hall in an easy-to-reprint format.
Exhibit B: Wedding photos. They are taken weeks, sometimes months in advance, and the bride does not wear her own dress, but the studio's dress. She also uses the studio's makeup, unless, as Gemma said, 'it sucks' and the bride-to-be is already a Lancome/Chanel/M.A.C. shopper (as many Korean women are ...). For the real event, the dress is rented. (OK, sentimental value of the dress aside, renting a dress is genius - but how many times can a Vera Wang be resized?) Not sure if Gemma rented or bought her dress.
Shortly after taking pictures of these wedding pictures (yes, ridiculous, I know), they were whisked away by a wedding hall employee and replaced with the next couple's photos. This is while the bride and groom were still having their photos taken in the hall. Oh, the hall. It's exhibit C. It was artfully neutral and, as one person has commented, quite 'futuristic' when compared to a church. Character? Maybe. Warmth? Sort of. High fashion runway? Check. If it wasn't for the fact that this room had no doors to close off noise (i.e. chatty wedding-goers, both inside and out), I'd probably prefer it to a regular church wedding.
This brings us to Exhibit D: gifts. Everyone gives money. Now, I knew this early and ran around like crazy the morning of trying to find any store open before 10am that also sold cards. I had to settle on GS25 (a convenience store chain). I should have just waited. Everybody I saw used the same white envelope. You know, like the kind you get at a bank. In order to get your buffet ticket, you were required to sign the registry and (if you were to follow everyone else around you ... and avoid dirty looks and nasty whispers from many) hand over that cash in a given envelope with your name on it. This is the kind of pressure I could never live with.
Despite all these differences, the wedding was short and sweet. Zoe, a coworker, worked at 2 in the afternoon and was still able to stay through the ceremony (which lasted far less than 1 hour - more like 30 minutes for the marriage itself!) and even eat lunch if she had wanted to. I was able to get a pair of hikers and a travel purse and get home by 4pm. Overall, it was far less cumbersome than many weddings I experienced, and the ceremony was no less meaningful (again, apart from the gabbers in the back). And Gemma, for all her indifference before the wedding (I seem to recall her saying something like 'I couldn't care less about this bloody wedding' when I asked her about the dress code at work) smiled ecstatically for over two hours - probably longer.
The final stage of the wedding - after visiting the bride; after the ceremony; after photos; and after the buffet - was what I'd come for. Gemma in her hanbok (traditional Korean dress) and ceremonial wedding attire. What I had thought would be a very Asian ornate hairpiece turned out to be just part of her headdress; Ja'in's rather plain blue top and pink "jazz pants" were replaced with embroidered versions. And Gemma's red lips were matched with rouge like I've never seen rouge done before; one big round dot on each cheek to ward off evil.
All in all, I couldn't have asked for a better birthday: new cultural experiences, time with friends, a teeny-tiny bit of shopping for really fun and useful stuff ... and an ice cream waffle delight from Hagen Daaz to top it all off. Feed the mind and the body, isn't that what the Olympians did?
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