It promises to be another interesting month in Asia. March began with my monthly trip to Thailand. Soy's sister Mai was getting married to her long-time boyfriend Aek. Both Mai and Aek had studied at beltway universities (George Mason and Georgetown) at the same time Soy and I were at George Washington University, so I knew them both quite well and was happy to receive the invitation.

It would be my second chance to attend a Chinese wedding since I'd arrived and I was keen to see how the two would differ. It was also another good opportunity to meet more of Soy's gigantic family.

My first Chinese wedding was in February. Li Hsien, one of my swing dance buddies, asked me if I would take photos at her sister's wedding. The family was getting professional shots done, but wanted to have some more "candid" shots of the goings on. From previous weddings she had found that the non-professional shots were often more interesting. I guess she had liked the photos of my travels that I brought to Swing class whenever I returned from abroad. Whatever the case, I happily agreed.

I actually preferred the fact that it was a working wedding because it gave me a good excuse to stick my nose into everything while remaining generally invisible at the same time. I could more easily blend in and reflect on the proceedings in a way I could not have had I been a guest.

The wedding began before dawn as the Lim household prepared for Ray, the groom, to show up. As expected, Ray arrived with the sun and found himself locked out.

You see, before he could see his bride-to-be Nick, he had to bribe his way through the sisters as well as satisfy their whims.

He came well prepared with bulging red envelopes to pay off the pack of wardens through the holes in the gate. Of course, the process took several rounds of bartering, after all, Ray was taking away a sister and would have to pay handsomely for the right. Once the sisters were satisfied with their take, they subjected Ray to public humiliation demanding that he profess his love to Nick by singing from the street.

The whole thing was extremely light-hearted and Ray was eventually let into the house.

After a bit more gift giving, the whole crew went off to a photo studio to take the professional wedding shots. Wedding pictures are very interesting here. I think they are basically equivalent to "glamour shots" in the states. The photos are highly posed and include all sorts of backdrops and costumes. Actually, they look like they are right out of Vogue. But, the pictures are quite amazing and Nick and Ray looked great.

Once the photos were done, everyone returned to Li Hsien's house for the tea ceremony. In this ceremony, which seems to me the equivalent to walking down the aisle in a Christian wedding, the bride and groom serve tea to the older family members in a fairly ritualized manner. Each relative presents money to the couple in exchange for the tea. Once all the older family members are done, the newly weds switch positions and are served tea by the younger guests who each receive Ang Pao packets themselves.

As you can see, there is a good deal of money changing hands at a Chinese wedding but it seems that in the end, the newlyweds get a bit of a nest egg and the younger guests all go away with a little bit of cash.

After the tea ceremony, I was off to go home and relax. However, I had a few hours since I had to go to the hotel where the wedding dinner would be by 7PM.

The dinner was nice. Speeches were short and the food was served buffet style so that I was free to choose whatever looked good. Unfortunately, I ended up talking about computers at the dinner table, but that was okay and was short enough. After dinner I snatched up my camera again and started working.

The bride and groom were making their rounds around the party hall. At each table they thanked the guests and led a toast. Following them was an entourage of best men and women who made sure that Ray downed the booze. The toasting ended at the two tables where all the friends of the bride and groom sat and was extremely funny.

At these tables the best men forced Ray and Nick to stand on chairs and perform all sorts of embarrassing games. One such game involved Nick being blindfolded and having to guess whose butt was Ray's by feeling up several guests. Comically, she took Ray out of the running in the first round, but the game was fixed so that Ray came in at the end to win.

After that was dancing for the rest of the evening.

Mai and Aek's wedding was fairly similar except that the wedding banquet was far more formal. Like Ray, Aek had to bribe his way into the house and perform the tea ceremony. Poor Aek must have had to shell out thousands of dollars since there are simply so many family members.

The banquet, as I said was far more formal. In fact, I had to buy a suit for the occasion, which was cool since clothes in Thailand are so incredibly cheap right now.

I arrived in Bangkok on Friday night and was able to go shopping on Saturday morning with Soy after a casual breakfast at the hotel. After the suit was tailored we went to a salon and Soy got the full makeover while I got a haircut and shave. I have to say, Soy looked absatively phenomenal but I felt sorry for her because she would have to spend the whole day in full on make-up. In retrospect, the people at Ray and Nick's wedding were also extremely made up. It seems everyone goes out in the morning to get seriously painted and groomed.

Since Soy was all done up, I got a rare and exciting opportunity to drive on the wrong side of the road in heavy Bangkok traffic. It was fun, though since there was plenty of traffic, I had not problem remembering which side to drive on unlike Koh Samuii where I constantly ended up on the wrong side since I had no other cars to use as reference.

We arrived safe and sound at the hotel and went up to the banquet room to join the already seated 1000+ guests. Dinner was okay. There was a lot of fish and strange dishes that I did not eat, but that was okay since I'd had a big lunch. I spent most of the dinner talking with Douglas, one of Soy's bosses. He was very cool.

After dinner we all went dancing at a trendy joint called Spazzo. It reminded me a lot of Papa Joes in Singapore, attracting expats and the Thai equivalent of SPG's like flies to fly paper.

On Sunday I went to measure a zoot suit which I was having made at a tailor near Soy's house. The suit is lime green and quite cool. Perhaps I will have a picture of me swing dancing in it by the time I put this journal entry on the web. Along with me were Dave and Soy.

As it turned out, Dave had recently been booted from Taiwan because of Visa troubles. Apparently he had over stayed his visitor's visa a couple of times and upon returning from Hong Kong, he had been told that he could not re-enter. As he was between jobs, and his current work visa had not been completed yet, he had no choice but to spend the night in the airport and then find a plane elsewhere in the morning. He ended up going to Thailand that was the cheapest place to stay for a long period of time.

Fortunately for me it was a good opportunity to hang out with him since I had not had the chance to see him and Leivin in Taiwan. We had a good lunch together after the tailor and I felt that Dave was really happy. Soy also mentioned that he had a glow about him which made him look more healthy and friendly than he had looked in LA. At any rate, after lunch I went off to the airport and Dave went out shopping with Soy. I guess he went to Krabi and Koh Samuii after that but perhaps he will write up something about it himself.