Lei Lei's Wedding

We were at Kunming on November 1st for the day of our manager (of our Center) and friend, Lei Lei’s, wedding. It was also my birthday! The day of the wedding started with us dressing in our finest shirts, pants and shoes, and cramming all 5 of us in a taxi. We drove to Lei Lei’s house which was full of about 30 of her relatives and best friends. We knew that Tony (the groom) had arrived when firecrackers started to explode in the front yard. Traditional Chinese weddings are less formal then American ones. When Tony got up to the front door with his posse, he had to bribe his way into the house by giving red envelopes to everyone. Once his wallet was empty, they finally let him in. But they didn’t let him see the bride just yet. Lei Lei had to hide in her room, then Tony recited a poem (in the local dialect) about his devotion to her before she let him in. Just when you thought the games were over, the party moved to Tony’s house in his group of jeeps. The drive seemed to take forever because of (you guessed it) more bad weather. It was raining, and cloudy, and damp, and dark, and miserable. Great day for a wedding right? 

At Tony’s house, we met up with his parents, had a cuppa tea and Bryce (my 10 year old younger brother) jumped on Lei Lei and Tony’s bed with another girl. (I’d tell you why, but if you’re my friend you probably already know. If you don‘t, wait, no one reads this blog, so it doesn’t matter right?)
Yet another car ride took us to our lunch. It was set in a gallery-restaurant which was displaying an exhibit about glass sheep on tires. Lunch consisted of Swedish meatballs (not as good as Al Johnsons, you know, that place with the goats on the roof in Sister Bay?), mashed potatoes (as good as The Viking, that place across from our gallery-Linden Gallery), spaghetti, (I can’t remember the last time I’ve had spaghetti in Door County) and curry chicken (I <3 class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> The guests didn’t arrive for another 2 hours so Peter gave us a riddle, no he called it…The Ultimate Riddle. Here it is: 40 boats go out but only 39 come back, what happened? You could only ask yes or no questions, but by the end of the hour, I figured it out (which was really fast, according to Peter). If you want to answer/ask questions, just post in the comments. Actually, I don’t expect anyone to post anything, since no one reads this blog.
Anyway, the wedding commenced and went by without a hitch. Nobody smashed through a window, the cake didn’t explode, and no morbidly obese person died from a heart attack after singing a song. My dad made a speech, but it seemed like half the people there were more interested in eating the food, then the wedding. Oh yeah, my dad also wedded them. I guess it was cheaper that way. I was surprised at how fast the wedding was over, it seemed like only an hour of celebration and eating before the back rows stated leaving. Herd mentality kicked in and before we knew it, we were the last ones there. Lei Lei came to our table after changing out of her wedding dress. She seemed very tired. I would be too after a day of accepting bribes, playing wedding-trivia, being wed, and thanking all 69 tables for coming.