Cambodian Weddings

I could probably write something elegant about going to a Cambodian wedding, but there's nothing particularly elegant about them at all. I will try to describe one that I went to recently. One of the teachers who used to live in Angkor Chum recently got engaged to a woman in Pourk. As custom dictates, they held the wedding there last Wednesday. (He will also cease to work in Angkor Chum, as he will now have to live with bride's family in their house) So after morning classes at the high school, a bunch of teachers and I piled into the school director's car and set off for Pourk. I could hear the loud music from about a half a mile away. In the past, Cambodians employed musicians to play in order to let everyone know that someone was getting married. Nowadays, they prefer a stack of speakers ten feet high and turned to the highest decibel level. When we arrived, the bride and groom greeted us by the entrance to a massive pink and yellow tent. The groom was wearing a long silver coat, with a golden chain necklace around his neck. The bride was wearing some white and yellow polythene dress. Between the arches curving up from her shoulders and the pasty white makeup on her face, she seemed more dragon-like than graceful. I shook the groom's hand, and sat down at a table with the school director and some of the other teachers. Mostly everyone wore the same thing. Men wore what they usually wear to work, and women wore these ghastly wedding costumes that resembled what the bride wore. I have heard from the female volunteers that these wedding outfits are very costly to make, and are extremely uncomfortable. They mostly consist of a long skirt, and elaborate blouse with an open back revealing the shoulders.

Before this stage in the wedding, there is a point where the bride and groom process in front of the house, and a monk chants over them to enact the marriage. I have never seen it, because the party I go with usually arrives too late. Instead, I hold witness to the eating, drinking, and dancing. The food is usually ok, but since they have to provide lunch for several hundred people it is not always fresh when it reaches your table. It can sometimes make you violently ill, but you still have to eat it to be polite. Dogs also pass freely around your legs, eating what the guests have not finished off.

The drinking, however, is what most of the men arrive for. The next few hours can be visualized as this: Imagine a very large and very drunk Cambodian man hovering over you, pouring glass after glass of beer for you and shouting to drink it all in one go. Sometimes you can deflect this (I fill my glass with a centimeter of beer and the rest with water), but other times you cannot. If the groom hands you a fresh glass of Anchor Beer and commands you to drink with him, are you really going to deny him that? It is his wedding after all.

Add also to that vision that it is boiling hot, and that Cambodian pop tunes are being jack hammered into your head by a very large sound system. Now I do not mind talking with the other teachers and joking around with them over a few glasses of beer. Sometimes these weddings can be a lot of fun! At this one, I kept telling my co-teacher that the girl in the white dress behind him was dying to talk to him if not for being nervous. I kept goading him to make the first move, and the whole thing has become a long running joke between us. But when someone grabs me by the shirt, pulls me out of my chair to the ground, and commands that I should dance...that is really too much. Sadly enough, that happens too often.

One usually stays for about two to three hours. After that, things usually get ugly. This is the point at the party where everyone has gone home except a few diehards. Language also gets pretty vulgar. At this last wedding, a man who worked for the local government sat at my table and spoke English reasonably well. By the time the party was over, he was reduced to asking questions like, "Do you like to f$%k?"

When people are ready to leave, envelopes are distributed among the tables. It is customary that the guests put money in these envelopes, about $10 is appropriate, and place them inside a heart shaped box towards the exit. The bride and groom then thank you for coming, and give you a stick of gum as a parting gift.

Then comes the part where you go home and out of the sun, strip off your clothes, shower, and try and sleep off the beer before dinner time.