Before I get to the details of the trip, an quick update on books I've read so far in 2014:
- The Ocean at the End of the Lane, by Neil Gaiman: I read this book from start to finish during one gloomy Sunday while my right index finger was healing from a fresh flesh wound inflicted by a vegetable grater. In traditional Neil Gaiman style, the story begins in a very believable world that we're all familiar with, but then suddenly things take a very imaginative turn and mythical things start happening. In this book, a middle-aged man takes a trip to his childhood home and wanders to a lake at the end of the street where memories of his childhood come flooding back. A short novel, it was good but not quite as good as other books I've read by Neil Gaiman, such American Gods and Neverwhere.
- Replay, by Ken Grimwood: Suggested by a former coworker who read it for her book club and thought I'd enjoy it, I read this book in its entirety during the 14-hour flight from Chicago to Beijing. In this time-travel story, a man dies at age 43 in 1988 and comes back to life at age 18 in 1963 during his college days repeatedly (as in more than once and at the same time every time in 1988). The various exploits of the main character during these mysterious time-travel episodes were starting to get a little old when interesting things suddenly started happening after a few "replays" of his formidable years. I probably should have slept more during the long flight but I just couldn't stop reading.
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| "We'll soar together." - Ken Grimwood, Replay |
Now onto the China trip with my mom and my brother. The primary reasons for my trip were my cousin's wedding and seeing relatives who I last saw in 2006. I've never attended a wedding before this one, and being a Chinese wedding it's probably a little different than what I anticipate to see here in the US later this year. There's a lot of superstition surrounding Chinese weddings that I was unaware of, and apparently my brother and I played a key part in that. Also, I had the privilege of being the best man at this wedding for my cousin and would be doing so with zero practice/experience/rehearsal under my belt. According to superstition, the best man and maid of honor need to be single, previously unmarried folk.
We arrived in Beijing Saturday evening, with the wedding the next day (Sunday). According to plan, my brother and I slept in my cousin's bed that night, because superstition says that single folk should sleep there the night before the wedding. Small children should also romp around in that bed at some point before the wedding, which happened at some point before we arrived.
We (the groom, my brother, and myself) got up at 6 in the morning on Sunday, got ready and got dressed, and the groom handed me a stack of red packets of money "for later when I may need them." We then departed in a vehicle adorned with flowers and bow-ties to a hotel to "fetch the bride." The bride, bridesmaids, and friends spent the night at this hotel getting ready for the wedding day. (I should probably mention that all along during this journey wedding photographers and videographers were following along.) Upon arrival at the hotel bedroom with the door closed and barricaded by people, the groom had to prove himself worthy of entering by saying (and singing) various things. After we got in (somewhat forcibly), the bride was seated on the bed in full wedding attire except for her shoes - the groom and I had to find her shoes, which were hidden somewhere in the room. I opened the wardrobe door and a girl jumped out at me asking for red packets - I then proceeded to hand her my entire stack of approximately 8 red packets mainly because I had no idea what I was doing, but that turned out ok because inside the wardrobe she was standing on a pillow with one of the two shoes hidden inside the pillowcase. Locating the second shoe in the room required a hint that my cousin received by handing out more red packets to bridesmaids. After exchanging some more red packets between groomsmen, bridesmaids, groom, and bride, we were on our way out of the hotel with a particular folded-up red blanket in our tow, which would play a key part in the next part of the journey.
The wedding procession (which included a white BMW X-1 adorned with flowers and bow-ties in the front, followed by several black Audi A6's) then headed to the groom's parents' home. Inside the home was an empty bed, and the groom needed to carry the bride without her feet ever touching the ground from the vehicle to the bed and let her down onto the red blanket which also needed to be carried there from inside the vehicle and spread onto the bed in quick fashion lest the bride be dropped too early (we were successful). Dumplings were cooked for the groom and bride, and after eating some dumplings and avidly pronouncing them raw ("sheng," which is homonymous with the Chinese word for "give birth") despite them being fully cooked, some photographs were taken, then everyone was on their way in procession across the city in ruthless Sunday morning Beijing traffic to the hotel where the wedding ceremony took place.
Firecrackers happened (as they did throughout the morning every time we reached a destination in the journey), then some waiting around for wedding guests to arrive, then I was briefed for the second or third time by different people on my duties as best man. The wedding ceremony took place in a large dining room of the hotel where guests would be provided with generous lunch food and beverages. During the ceremony, my main duties as best man were keeper of the microphone (handing it to speakers on stage when needed) and keeper of the secret gift that the groom prepared for the bride. There was the entrance of the bride...
...some ceremonial tea-drinking for the bride's and groom's parents...
...some ring-presenting, some words spoken by various guests, a ceremonial wine-pouring into a cascading wine-glass setup...
...and an exchange of secret gifts, then lunch commenced for the guests. The main speaker of the ceremony was fairly entertaining.
Shortly after lunch began, the bride and groom, followed by the maid of honor and best man, go around to each table of guests and have a small drink with each guest as a kind gesture. Some guests may give the couple a red packet during this, because apparently exchanging money is the thing to do in China during special occasions such as these. During these rounds, the best man carries a platter of candy and cigarettes to appease those who may want those, as well as a small jug of alcohol water on the platter to refill the bride's and groom's glasses after doing "cheers" and having a drink with each wedding guest. It's necessary to fill the bride's and groom's glasses with water because there are a lot of wedding guests to drink with and alcohol would either end the ceremony prematurely and/or end poorly. I was fortunate to have the maid of honor doing the refilling of water while I focused on carrying the platter in my jet-lagged haze.
That's about it! May the newlyweds live happily ever after.
The rest of my trip consisted of seeing relatives, eating, sleeping, and visiting the Beijing Olympic Park, including going inside the Bird's Nest and skirting the perimeter of the Water Cube.
Overall, it was a good trip, although somewhat short for me due to various circumstances. The flight from Beijing to San Francisco was pretty packed and a group of high school students on a "study tour" in the US (visiting college campuses) settled down in the seats all around mine. During the flight, I met Echo and Winona (students in the 2 seats next to me who were embarking on their first trip to the US) as well as their teacher (in the seat across the aisle from me who could have been anywhere between 22 and 37 years old if I were to guess). The students struck a conversation with me and were fascinated in my presence as a Cornell alumnus who could speak both English and Mandarin with a Beijing accent. Winona was quiet and shy like myself, but Echo was extremely outgoing and talkative and spoke with me whenever we were both awake during the flight. She was amazed at how straight my teeth were when I smiled and thought it was funny how my talking resembled that of Wang Leehom, who is one of her favorite Chinese music stars. I like to think that this made the flight from PEK -> SFO very short compared to the ORD -> PEK flight, because the flight did feel very short, but maybe that's because I slept for about half the flight.
