5 Months Post-Haerbin Update!

Alright, so it has been five months and I'm back to being a grad student. I have decided to peace back together some of the loose ends from the summer (stories for your enjoyment that I didn't have a chance to include earlier). To start off, some things I am missing a lot and the Chinese wedding I was lucky enough to witness. I am clearly missing the great pickup soccer and basketball games after class and picking up on trash talk in Chinese. With classes and not much free time, this just isn't possible. Of course the Chinese population in D.C. is a bit on the sparse side...unless you go out to the real Chinatown of D.C., Rockville (or Wokville as some call it). When you are back for several months from any experience abroad, there are certain things you can't replace. From time to time I need to get out the old soccer jersey dedicated to our pickup soccer team formed this summer. It is probably the one item from the summer that brings back a lot of great memories from Haerbin. I'm also missing the amazing "Dongbei hua" or Northeast accent that I just can't get enough of. I admit it will always be second to "beijing hua" or the Beijing accent but it very much has its own special points. And then there are the great Chinese and American friends from the summer that I have had trouble keeping up with as expected. Life always has to get in the way and you just can't seem to revert back to the days when things were simpler and commitments fewer. As for Haerbin food, that also can't be matched back in the U.S., as well as the amazing fuwuyuaner (service women) that always had a smile on their face and were always eager to start a side conversation with the foreigners that could speak Chinese.

Okay, enough reminiscing from me this time and onto the wedding story. So, one day in class my professor asked out of the blue if we wanted to go to a wedding. Of course we all took her up on the offer and later that week were off to her husband's friend's wedding. Now of course we were the token foreigners at the wedding out of the hundred or so guests in the hotel ballroom. Each table naturally had a "lazy Susan" (side note: I still have never used this word to call the round, spinning thing at every banquet-style table. It just sounds like a strange word to me.) so I knew that food would be had. And food there was, and by food, I mean a LOT of it. I guess a wedding in China is a huge feast. There are some amazing pictures of the plates stacked in balance, one upon the other, in perfect symmetry. It really was a work of art. Along with the food, there were the double happiness cigarettes at each table a fish for prosperity (since it sounds like the Chinese word for wealth...the Chinese are so auspicious). But aside from food on the table and whatnot, I made some peculiar observations throughout the ceremony: people were dressed very casual. The occasion could have been for anything really if you were just looking at what people were wearing. Another thing that immediately caught my attention was people not paying attention at all to the proceedings. I knew that the ceremony would lack religious aspects of the traditional American wedding since they are officially atheist, but everyone could care less and only were interested in eating and talking to their friends supposedly. I guess it didn't help that the MC was emulating the persona of a dating show host auctioning off the girl for a one-off date. Between cheesy musical interludes, the MC detailed their life stories, how they met, who there parents were and their family history. Then it was off to thank the parents for raising them well and then it was over. The bride and groom went to each table drinking "baijiu" (alcohol that tastes like pure gasoline and is in fact almost pure alcohol). They evenutally came to our table, thanked us for being there and took a drink with us. The experience was interesting to say the least and left me asking questions about what marriage means in today's Chinese society. It is fascinating that the Western culture of "weddings" can be taken and warped around a uniquely Chinese culture. I feel like this could have more repercussions than I first considered.

*Be on the lookout for another Haerbin story next week!