Yesterday, Saturday September 6th, I went to Tsung-Yi's wedding in Taipei. Tsung-Yi is a really good friend and colleague of Aspen, who is my friend from the University of Minnesota. Tsung-Yi (and another friend, C.K.) were the ones who helped get me situated the first couple of days. Tsung-Yi's wife is Ya-Shu, she is really nice. I took the bus to Taipei (the 'p' is actually more pronounced like a 'b') and then taxied to Taibei County Hall, where the banquet was. They do the civil ceremony on a different day (not sure if they already did it), but this was the banquet where they invited about 150-200 guests! I was told that this was not a traditional wedding (although there were some traditional parts, like the guests brought money in red envelopes and the married couple gave them 'blessed wedding cookies' to show their gratitude). At the banquet they started out with a procession, the bride wearing a beautiful white gown (pic #1). Then they walked up front to the stage and some important people in their lives gave speeches (one of whom was the dean of their Sociology department ... who happened to be the parent of one of my students, Max!! Max was there too and I was formally introduced to Max's dad, the dean). Then they cut the cake, which seemed to be the final signal that now they were married.
I sat at the table with C.K. and his girlfriend (I'm embarrassed to say that I know her name starts with 'Ru' but, I don't know how it ends) (picture #4). This was the table that all of Tsung-Yi's Sociology colleagues (they are all doctorate students) were sitting at. I was sitting next to Albert, who spoke English really well and even knew where Minnesota was! (He had done three years of summer school research at the University of Chicago). Another friend had lived and studied in New York for the past seven years and was back in Taiwan to do some research for his thesis. He also spoke English really well. We ate A LOT of really good food. It was served family style on a lazy susan (pic #3). There was: salmon wrapped asparagus, crab, jelly fish, scallops, chicken, ham, whole fish, lamb, oysters, really good pork, vegetables I couldn't name (and no one else knew how to translate), watermelon, guava, juice and wine. I'm sure there are dishes I forgot to mention!
During the banquet Ya-Shu and Tsung-Yi sang a Chinese love song to each other ... Ya-Shu had at this point changed her outfit to a beautiful red gown (pic #2). It was funny for me that they sang this particular song because a few days at school during lunch two of my 8th grade students, Ariel and Jean, were singing this song softly. I was sitting with Panda and asked them if they would sing the song for us. They were embarrassed so we made them a deal ... Panda and I would sing first, and then they would sing afterwards. Panda and I managed to belt out 'You are my sunshine' and got lots of funny looks from the students around us. Ariel and Jean were laughing so hard that they were wiping away tears from their eyes, probably because of how beautiful it sounded :) Then they sang the song for us. It turns out that it was the same Chinese love song that was sung at the wedding!!! C.K. was laughing when they were singing and kept telling me that this was definitely not done at most weddings!! After they finished singing Tsung-Yi professed his love for Ya-Shu by getting down on one knee with a huge bouquet of flowers. Apparently, after the conversation was translated, Ya-Shu responded that she didn't believe him!! Haha, the mood of the banquet was really fun and uplifting. Then they started handing out roses from the bouquet to all of the men in the room. At the end they had the men give the roses to a woman that was special to them. Yes, I got two roses ... one from C.K. and the other from Albert, both of whom have girlfriends! :)
Then the last event was the tossing of the bride's flowers. She came out all decked in a beautiful blue gown. They asked all the single ladies to go up and catch the bouquet. I think it was a mixture of not wanted to ask if I have a boyfriend and not wanting to embarrass me by having me go up in front of everyone, but no one pushed me to go up (which I was thankful for). They did start chanting the name of someone else seated at my table though! She did end up going up. I was glad too because the woman who caught the flowers had to say something into the mic ... not sure what ... maybe her blessing to the couple? Then the event was over ... I would say it lasted a couple of hours.
Albert was going back to Hsinchu too so we took the bus back together. On our way back we saw high school hip hop dancing groups in the underground metro stations (their regular hang out, which is smart because there is a lot of space, plugs for their radios and it is air conditioned!!) (pic #5) I asked Albert if I could join one of the groups and after laughing he told me that high schoolers are too shy, but that I should see if I could join at the college level :) We also saw a magician performing a card trick and then trying to sell the trick to people.
We went and had a bbq at Mick's friend's house which is on the middle of a mountain that sounds like 'yummy' (I think it's like Yangming?!?). Apparently the mountain is pretty famous ... has lots of rich people living on it. We had the bbq on the 4th floor of Singer's house ... it was open and the typhoon was going on right in front of us!!
The food was SOOOOO delicious. I ate so much I seriously thought I was going to burst. Here is some squid ... I had never seen it be grilled before ... and so I preceded to flip out when the tentacles starting moving (which apparently is just them contracting ...).
Here I am eating the squid. Man, I'm getting hungry just looking at the picture! Singer is in light blue ... he lives at the house with his wife, his parents, his sister and her boyfriend.
Singer's mom reads palms. She was amazing. She knew a lot of stuff about me just through examining my palm!! And she couldn't have known it before because we couldn't really talk due to the language barrier. Mick kindly translated the reading for me. It was really interesting because it was done with a Taiwanese spin ... she kept quoting Confucius and her suggestions had to do with upholding traditional Taiwanese values like 'saving face' and the importance of being part of a community, not too independent. I learned too that if someone reads your hand it is important to give them something in exchange, no matter how much or how little. This concept exists in Ecuador too ... the give and take.
So, yes, the car did break down. Too much water got in the engine. This is Mick sucking out the water with the straws! Well, here he's just posing for the picture, but he really did suck out the water and spit it on the ground! Kinda gross, but it got the job done! We were able to get back to Hsinchu just fine :)
