Diana At the Crossroad: Wedding Season

These last few weeks have been a blur of pastel colors, sequins, icy beer, dirty toes, and pounding ear drums. As many of you already know, there are only 2 seasons in Cambodia. Rainy season, and then wedding season (aka dry season). Smart readers would be able to deduce that now it is indeed wedding season. I have been to 5 weddings already, and it’s still only the first month of wedding season. Most of these weddings, I had absolutely no idea who was getting married. The first 2 or 3 weddings, were friends of my family. Invitations were dropped off at my house. The wedding hosters asked my brother and sister “can she eat Khmer food?” “yes.” “Can she dance?” “yes.” “bring her.” Another wedding I went to was the daughter of someone who works in the market. When I arrived at the wedding, they brought me to the market lady and said “see? You know her!” I had no idea who she was so I kind of stammered for a bit. Then they said “you bought laundry soap from her in the market once!” “…..OH! yeah ok….” (total lie). Why would I remember something like that? Well apparently she remembered me and made sure that I was invited to her daughter’s wedding. The last wedding I went to was the daughter of a teacher at my school, so all the teachers were invited.

Wedding celebrations begin before sunrise- at about 4:30AM. I couldn’t really tell you what happens then, because I have never been involved in that part of the ceremony. I just know that by 4:30, the giant speakers are set up and are blasting traditional Khmer music to awaken the community and alert them that there is a marriage happening. The female invitees start getting ready sometime after lunch. They go to local beauticians and get their nails, hair, and make-up done. I like getting my nails done here. Khmer people love sparkles and big colorful nail stickers. One of my adult students is a beautician, so she does my nails for free (although even if I were to pay for it, it would only be about 50 cents for a mani pedi).

SIDE STORY:

It was the first time I was going to my student’s beautician shop to get the free mani pedi she promised me in exchange for teaching her English. She set to work on my toes. She scrubbed the old nail polish off, put lotion on my toes, and then started cutting away at my cuticles. All the while, she’s having a very rapid conversation in Khmer with my sister (not all that different from nail salons in America haha). She is really cutting away. Cambodians like nails to be extremely rounded, so she’s trying to make my feet Khmer. Not gonna lie, it kinda hurt. Then she really clipped me bad. My eyes widened, but I didn’t say anything. I just watched the blood gush out. Then she looked down and quickly looked back up at me.

“teacher! Blood!”

“yes- I see that”

“does it hurt?”

“a little”

She wiped away the blood with a rag and continues working. She moved on to my fingernails, but every minute or so, she would wipe the fresh blood from my toe, until her yellow rag was stained all over with my blood. She wiped again. And again. And again.

“teacher, you’re bleeding FOREVER”

“yes- I see that”

She stood up and went over to her counter and came back with a slice of a lemon. She sat down again, held it over my toe, and then paused. She looked up at me and said “teacher, this is going to hurt” and to my horror, she squeezed the lemon juice into the open wound.

Whether it really helped or not, I don’t know. But eventually the bleeding stopped, and all my nails were deemed beautiful.

Now when I go get my nails done, they ladies are MUCH more careful haha. Though they still use that yellow rag with my blood stains all over it…

Aight. So WEDDINGS. Once your nails are done, then you get your hair did. I’ve only let them do my hair once. They just did two simple braids on top of my head. Normally, they do all kinds of big twisty do’s. Many times it’s even bigger than prom hair! Then it’s make-up time. The most important stuff is the white foundation or cover-up or whatever it is. They just cake that stuff on. I tease them all the time and tell them they look like ghosts or Dracula. They make pink circles on their cheeks, paste on long fake eyelashes, and color in the lips. By the end of the process they look like little china dolls. Sometimes when I see my students at weddings, I don’t recognize them right away because they look so different with the make-up. I have not yet let Cambodians do my make-up. But maybe one day I will, just for funsies.

Then you come home and you change your clothes. Men wear the same thing that they wear every day- slacks and a collared shirt. Women, for the most part, wear their traditional Khmer wedding clothes. They have fancy colorful sampots (long skirts) made of silk. Then their shirts are kind of like more modest versions of corsets- absolutely COVERED in lace and sequins. Some women who are part of the wedding party wear entire dresses like this. Again, it’s just like prom- but on steroids or something. They are all in bright, sparkly colors too. You’ll never see a black dress. Some women do wear “western” dresses to weddings, particularly if it is not a “rich” wedding and they have hopes of dancing big.

When you arrive at the wedding, you walk into the tent between two lines of people in the wedding party. I can only assume that the bride and groom are in the somewhere, but I’ve never actually known a bride or groom. You “sompaya” at all of them (hold a praying position just under your nose to show respect). They usually give you a little treat, such as a pen or a keychain. Then you are seated at a table, and the food comes.

Weddings are like a 3 course meal, and it’s usually pretty good food. They have spring rolls and peanuts and roast chicken or duck and fried rice and soup and stir fried shrimp, and more. The food is all placed in the middle of the table and you are free to take whatever you please with your chopsticks.

During all this feasting is also binge drinking. The beer just never stops flowing. Beer glasses are never allowed to be empty. The only time you ever see empty glasses is when the table has a “bottoms up” competitions. But even then, all the glasses are filled up again in seconds flat.

Once the feast is over, it’s dancing time. Mostly it’s all traditional Khmer music and traditional dancing. It’s simple footwork and then twisty stuff with your hands, trying to make your fingers look longer than they actually are. Occasionally, they throw in a Khmer Pop Song, and Khmer people dance “disco,” as they call it (a most incorrect term..). Before coming to Cambodia, I thought that dancing exactly like a Charlie Brown cartoon character was not humanly possible. Oh, but it is possible here in the Kingdom of Wonder. It’s so silly. If I’m REALLY lucky they might even play an American popular song.

At most of these weddings I have been kind of unhappy. It’s just not exactly my cup of tea. I usually do drink a bit. It makes my family and friends so happy when I cheers with them. But I stop before any else does. I also dance. Everyone always wants to dance with me. I can do all the different traditional dances. They’re not exactly FUN though. They are slow and gentle and LOOOOONG. I have had issues with creepy men I don’t know trying to dance all up in my business, but nothing I couldn’t control. I don’t know. I think I would enjoy weddings more if they were so frequent. I had four in one week!

There were times that I let loose a little and enjoy myself. Mostly I am on my guard, but occasionally, if I am surrounded by people I trust, I will let go and dance and enjoy myself with my friends. I like weddings at those times.

Mostly it is just the men who binge drink, but one wedding I went to, there were 3 women who were the most un-khmer women I’ve ever met. Women here pride themselves on being sopeap- gentle. These women were not gentle. I think they drank more than my brother! So that was a completely different experience because there was so much pressure for me to keep up with them. They would tell me to finish my glass. I would say NO and they would laugh. The drunker they got, the more in my face they were about it. It wasn’t threatening, more just comical. They were big women (again, so different from the norm). One woman in particular would come over to me, lean over to pick up my glass, thus shoving her giant boobs all up in my face, and ask me to drink drink drink! Dancing with these women was also crazy. It was like pinball, and I was the ball. They literally pushed and tugged me around the dance floor, fighting over who would get to dance in front of me. It was a real… experience.

My co-teacher had a party at his house on Christmas eve for his students. That was a lot of fun. He had the giant speakers and the dancing tent. I had a great time there. They played lots of American music and upbeat stuff that I could actually dance to. Plus, I knew most of the kids cuz they were my students too! And of course they all knew me. I was a little weirded out that kids as young as 12 were allowed to get drunk. I was also a little uncomfortable dancing with my students to songs with lyrics such as “tonight, give me everything tonight” and “tonight I’m fucking you.” But I supposed they can’t understand it anyway. The only thing they understand is the driving, pounding bass sounds. Anyway, I had a lot of fun at that party. Not exactly a QUIET Christmas party, but fun nonetheless.

Speaking of Christmas, on Christmas morning, I surprised my family by putting a small Christmas tree in the living room while they were sleeping, and surrounding it with small gifts. When my sister came out of her bedroom I heard her say “ooooooh…. CHRISTMAS CHRISTMAS! HUSBAND, LOOK, CHRISTMAS!” It was very sweet. They also each had a stocking with their name written in glitter filled with candy. I gave my sister a pair of sunglasses, mascara and eyeliner, and a sewing kit. She loved the make up and the sewing kit, but my brother teased her for the glasses, so we’ll see about those. For my brother I had a Khmer-English dictionary, and a strand of battery operated Christmas lights. I gave him Christmas lights because I was at a complete loss of what else to give him. However, it seems to have been extremely successful. He put his Christmas lights all around a bowl of fake fruit in the living room. He turns it on every night. It’s so cute.

That Christmas moment was wonderful, but the rest of my Christmas was kind of ruined by---- a wedding. NEXT DOOR. I had hopes of spending my Christmas watching movies and relaxing, but instead I had to beautify and primp and try not to lose my mind from the pounding speakers that shook my entire house.

So, heres to hoping that your Christmas was a little more peaceful than mine. And I wish you a very happy new year as well.