That
was fun!
So.
I am friends with Joe. I am friends with PJ. These are the facts. Joe
and PJ worked at the school I work at now and are moving to Abu
Dhabi this week. PJ is Thai, Joe is from America. More facts. They
had two ceremonies last Monday. One a traditional Buddhist ceremony early Monday
morning and a traditional Catholic wedding in the afternoon. I have
never been to a Thai wedding, was an event I really wanted to
experience while in Thailand and was very grateful to both of them
for letting me tag along in both ceremonies. I will do my best to
explain.
The
Buddhist ceremony in my opinion was the highlight of the day. PJ
graciously let me and Mare be a part of it. Last Sunday, I
met up with PJ, Joe and Joe's family at the wedding shop to get
fitted for the costume for the next day. Jacket fit great but had to
wait until the next day to put on the pants. I use the term pants
very "loosely". (Loosely, like pants are loose sometimes??
ahh nevermind) It was more like a very beautiful fabric that needs to
be put on in a very specific way. It involves knot tying, going
underneath your legs, a belt and looking a tad like Aladdin. I asked
PJ what time she would like me at her hotel the next morning?: 5:30am.
So I got shaved by my barber, set my alarm for 5am and get fairly
excited of a day of love that was about to transpire.
Get
to their hotel at 5:34am, right when Mare got there. The girls were
getting their hair done by some Thai lady-boys. The men were on our own to
figure out how to tie our own pants up. Luckily one of Joe's brothers
was paying attention at the fitting and MacGyvered our way into
looking fabuthai! (ha!!) Drove to school in my amazing Thai costume,
signed in at school and went to the ceremony. Actually got stared at
less driving because I resembled a real Thai person. In retrospect, I should have gone
to our new McDonald's and ate a delicious (former grade 3 spelling
word) breakfast. A hungry Bert is not a friendly Bert but I managed
to power through it. I'm growing up. I will do my best to sum up my
perspective of the Buddhist ceremony. I obviously will not do it
justice and probably didn't understand most of it.
I
got their around 6:55am, about 15 minutes before everyone else
because I am very punctual and reliable (see growing up remark
above). Once the wedding party got there we had to wait for 5 monks
to show up. August 20th was picked by monks as a lucky day and more
specifically 9:09. Once the monks showed up, PJ and Joe sat down on
the ground while Joe's family, a few other Thai people, Mare and I
looked on as they chanted somewhat rhythmically while blessing a
white piece of string. This lasted about 5 minutes, after the monks
were finished, a few more blessings and respectful offerings were
given, the monks were given food. After that, very traditionally, DJ
Phopon drove the monks back to the temple in his car. It was now
closer to 8:30, Joe's and his family left and were instructed to come
back to the ceremony, leaving where they were at 9:09 for good luck.
Very superstitious and exciting.
August
20th was a very popular day to have a wedding so the
streets were busy with brides, grooms and monks. Just before the
wedding party arrived, firecrackers were set off so scare away evil
spirits. I'm not going to lie, it startled me but does make sense
because I wouldn't want evil spirits around for my wedding, would
you? Joe's big family arrives in a single file, all holding offerings
and gifts. PJ is in a back room and Thai tradition is the groom has
to go through gates of people, professing his love for PJ and bribing
the gate keepers to let him pass. Mare and I are holding flowers and
garland and acting as gatekeepers. Instructions were to make Joe
profess his love loudly for PJ, why he loves her and so on. This was very
cool. Joe gets to the gate and Mare and I make him tell us why he
loves her. His answer: "She is a good time". I agree. He
tells us how beautiful she is, why he loves her and make him repeat
it louder so that she can hear. After about two minutes of this, Mare
and I were satisfied with what we have heard, take his bribe and let
him through.
Only
close friends, family and some employees from the school were invited to the
morning ceremony. I would say in total about maybe 30 people were
there including Joe's pretty large family, PJ's family, some other
Thai people I do not know, a very cute baby, the Director, his wife
and other higher up people at my school. Offerings were given, a lot
of Y ing took place, gifts were given to PJ's mother and to Joe's
mother. Joe and PJ were sitting on their knees the entire time while
the people involved in the ceremony were sitting on chairs. There was
a Thai man speaking in Thai, I'm assuming very nice things about Joe and PJ,
there were two other Thai people helping out with telling Joe and PJ
when to Y, where to sit, who to give what to. A lot of procedures to
cover so makes sense having experience and a translator. In
traditional Thai culture and other cultures around the world, a dowry
is given to the brides parents. I know that now it is a little less
common and sometimes just for show. Essentially, a dowry is a reward
for the parents for raising such a beautiful and well rounded
daughter, which PJ certainly is. Unclear how that worked in this
situation.
Next
step was blessings to be given to PJ and Joe by every person in
attendance at the wedding. This I was unaware of but was the
highlight of my day. PJ and Joe are sitting down on 2 separate
chairs, arms folder over a chair with their arms bent and hands
cupped together with a little space in between them. Then our
Director put the string that the monks blessed around Joe and PJ's
head which was attached to something that resembles a halo but fits
on your head. So they are joined by this blessed halo/string to
symbolize how connected they now are. Each person takes a turn with a beautiful ladle filled with blessed water and pours a small amount into Joe and PJ's
hands with the water falling into a small basin that had gorgeous flowers in it. I was asked to stand up and pour water into their
hands next. I found this quite exciting. While pouring water into
PJ's hand, she tells me I need to say a blessing. Well, apparently I
don't listen when my mom sent me to church the first 13 years of my
life so the best thing I could say was "PJ, you are very
beautiful and I hope you have very cute kids". Could have gone
worse. Regrouped and told Joe "Be nice to PJ". I'd say
solid effort.
After
everyone had blessed them and given them blessings of actual use,
pictures were taken like a typical Western wedding, snuck my way into
a few of those. Then that was it, first Buddhist Thai wedding in the
books. Very fascinating to observe a different way of getting married
and different traditions and customs. Very grateful and appreciative
to Joe and PJ for letting me come to both of their ceremonies and
reception. At 4pm was a traditional Catholic wedding with about 35 people at and it poured
down rain 15 minutes before the wedding so I don't think I could have
been more wet walking into that church. After that the reception had
about 350ish people there, food was served, slideshows of Joe and PJ
were put up, still not sure if the cake was real or not. A lot of
Thai people I did not know, a lot of my current students were there
because PJ was there Thai teacher last year. Overall great day that
went by very fast and just kept thinking how much Stu, Kait, Emma,
Jake and their other close friends would have loved to have witnessed
it. Good luck Joe and PJ with life in Abu Dhabi.
I
love you not only for what you are, but for what I am when I am with
you.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8-vZlrBYLSU
