Hong Kong, Wedding Style

This is embarrassing.  I know, it's been a short eternity since we posted, but with the New Year comes new resolutions.  One of them is to light up a dark, dark blog.  So, we're posting again.  To avoid the "commitment problem", we're not.  Committing, I mean.  So, I have goals written way inside me, but those will find their way out through implementation.
[The following is not meant to trivialize the truly lovely couple who are both highly accomplished, she from BYU Hawaii in music education and he, a scholarly engineering student bound for a prosperous career.  They were also sealed in the Hong Kong Temple.]

So, the first post is about an event we attended.  Read on...

Dad:  The table sat about 12 – it was round with the traditional “Lazy Susan” in the middle.  (I have no idea what they call it in Hong Kong– maybe “No work Han Fou”)  A metal ball was nailed to the ceiling, where different colored searchlights were focused, making swirling dots everywhere.  I thought I had been swallowed by something large and loud.  I began losing my ability to focus – half of the conversations were in Chinese and the other half didn’t make sense.

Marcie:  It was the 26^th of December in Hong Kong.  As part of Christmas, we were celebrating the marriage of  “Alice and Preston Tam” with 600 of their closest friends.  The invitations apprised us  of the traditional tea ceremony for close friends and that pictures and celebrations began at 7:00 – it was at one of the “posh” hotels sitting alongside the harbor in Hung Hom, about 500 meters from our apartment.  They had imported the stairway from a Disney set – long, sweeping,  pink poofs and ribbons, curving hand rails, balloons, singing chipmunks…

Steve: When I got to the top, I thought: “I’ve negotiated this with Mom in advance – one hour in and out.  This will be easy.  It’s just a big lobby where everyone’s standing around guzzling OJ and wine. ( I had four OJ’s – social anxiety.  This was not wise, but only the first in a long line of mistakes.)   We’ll slip our red gift envelope to Ricky Wong (works at the Church office building and the reason we weren’t elsewhere) and escape down the stairs.”  I was wrong.  The lobby was the prelude – the doors opened on a scene straight out of Dante.  100 grim stewards and –esses, all in no-nonsense black, prodded us inward to our table. We were table 11 – out of 50 something (at $1,500 per table).   Hanging onto sanity and proper etiquette was primary because we were seated with multiple GA’s: Elder Wong, Elder Wan, Elder Watson of the Area Presidency and President Wilson of the HK Temple Presidency.

(Before I make this obviously parenthetical comment, I want to say that our Asian General Authorities are marvelous men and have placed their lives on the line for the Kingdom in a way I have not.  That being said, the fact that their names almost rhyme shows that Our Lord's perfect sense of humor has survived His Glory.  Our 70's are named Wan, Wong, and Juan.  The Chinese staff pronounce "Juan" as "Ron", I suppose to separate him from his Latino counterparts.  I thought that his perfect mandarin and oriental eyes did that already quite well.  It got more complicated when we got a new first counselor in the Area Presidency, Elder Gong.  Wan, Wong, Juan and Gong.  Really?  To dispel confusion the staff have begun to append the areas that they administer to their names.  So, now we have "Elder Gong from Hong Kong" and "Elder Juan from Taiwan".  I've been getting a serious case of giggles in some very sober meetings.)  

Marcie: We began with the program—stage with an MC at one end, massive screen at the other (so redirecting your gaze wasn’t practical.)  MC’s aren’t as funny in Chinese as they think.  We saw slide shows of the happy couple representing each day from their mother’s labor to the day before they got married.  Every member of the family performed  beginning with an older brother clinging to his girlfriend on the stage and, on a 9-tone scale, belting a Karoke style Disney “It’s a Whole New World”.  It concluded with a little sister playing Chopin so fast that the piano got hot.  A live TV feed recorded the couple exiting from a fleet of vintage Mercedes trimmed in more pink ribboon and pink poofs leading up the stairway.  The bride was dressed in her second wedding dress, the white one – the traditional red having been worn earlier at the traditional Chinese tea ceremony, which they recorded, which they played, which we viewed.  They had flown in make-up artists from Hollywood – her skin was so layered, that it looked like porcelain.  Any errant smiles and the whole thing cracks.  “Losing face” would have a whole new meaning.

 

Steve:  Now it’s about 8:30 and the food starts.  The embossed menu, parchment interior, was sitting in the middle and I decided to open it.  12 courses not counting the OJ.   They had depopulated an entire coral reef for this single meal: sea clams, sea urchins, sea anemone, abalone, Grouper face, shrimp (eyes and tail still connected), eel, squid, squd, splish, splash….  The Grouper face was interesting – they put the fish – big head, big tail, open maw, sharp teeth— on the Susan and he rolled by every few seconds and scowled at you.  I’ve gotten used to the fish head –the scowling expression I still don’t like. 

About 9:30 I started to panic a little.  I need to stand, I thought.  If I can just stand, I’ll be Ok.  I tried.  Both upper-thighs went into massive cramps, and I put both arms around Marcie’s shoulders.  People thought I was drunk.  She’s still pretty strong, but isn’t used to carrying me, and we both collapsed back, my legs flipped up against the bottom of my chair.  It was at that moment that the family “wedding party” reached our table.  Bride and groom with upturned glasses, close family, and extended family make their way through the crowd , table by table, where they toast the health, welfare and possible survival of the happy couple.  Everyone stands,  hugs and tells stories, toasts again.  This takes about 16 hours.  My OJ glass was empty and I was in serious pain. I tipped forward, bent over the table, covered the bottom part of my glass with my hand, yelled “Prost” and put the glass to my mouth.   The moment finally passed, although many of the family went out of their way to keep their distance when they walked around me. 

I finally made it to my feet and hobbled to the door where I walked back and forth in the Mezzanine to ease the cramps.  The little black-uniformed youth kept trying to escort me to the bathroom or back to the dining hall.  My problems were far above intestinal .  Sanity has never been my strong point and I was losing what little grasp I had at reason.  After I could walk in a semi-upright position, going back in was the one of the hardest things I’ve ever done.

My companion to the right was President Wilson, counselor in the Temple presidency, a cherubic man – white hair surrounding a darker friar spot on the top of his head.  I babble when I’m nervous, not planned, meaningful discourse.  Just talk.  My jaw starts aimlessly flapping and I provide sound.  Free will and intent are just memories.  It’s like watching an avalanche – it just happens.  I can remember President Wilson’s round eyes in his blank face – obviously thinking that I must’ve been just released from a mental facility.  I don’t even know the subject of what I was saying – I dimly remember saying something about Sudoku, naked triplets and conjugate pairs.

Marcie:  Now it’s about 10:45.  The stewardii pick up the pace a little.  We’re only on course nine and people are going to have to make the midnight buses.  11:00.  They’ve turned their measured walk into a half-run and they’re carrying more servings on the platter.  11:15.  The crowd is getting restless and we’ve started on course 11.  11:30. For the last course, Chinese Petit  Fleurs.  Our waiter frisbeed 12 dessert plates around our table like a seasoned card dealer.   People have started to leave and they’re being handed their dessert as they’re walking to the door. 

Steve:  Me, I’m glazed.  Not just my eyes. Me.  I’ve drunk so much fresh-squeezed orange juice, I slosh when I walk.  And I’ve mixed it with a dozen kinds of sea food.  Gastronomic events of epic proportions lie in my immediate future.  With Moses, I murmur, “Let my people go” and limp through the swirling lights, head pounding and eyes dim.  The walk home by the slightly stinky Victoria harbor was quiet. 

I thought about survival.  I thought about endurance.  I thought about the skyscraper lights across the harbor reflecting on the water.  Heaven, I decided, is quiet.  Christmas should be quiet.  In a “better place” we’ll smile about earth-cacophonies, the things we worried about here, the things that were so important and now fade against the tranquil realities of the eternities.