I have to attend a wedding. This is not good news. Over the past few months I have managed to avoid accompanying she who must be obeyed to two funerals and a wedding using excuses such as “I don’t do funerals” and “my back hurts”.
This time it is harder to avoid. The bride is a cousin of my wife, the groom is a dangerously young Mexican boy who, suffused with love, somehow managed to find his way into Thailand when the airports were closed. They stayed with us for a few days and so it was hard to escape the inevitable wedding invitation.
The wedding is to take place at the family home in Ubon Ratchathani, the same location as our wedding a couple of years ago. I carefully pick an airline that will deliver us to Ubon late in the evening of the day before the wedding, and evacuate us to freedom early in the morning of the day after. She who must be obeyed seems to share my lack of enthusiasm for the venture as she suggests we rent a car so we can escape from the family whenever possible.
The wedding day starts badly at around 0500 (any day that starts before 0800 is a bad day) . As I am unable to leap around taking wedding photos (the bad back excuse is really useful sometimes), she who must be obeyed has volunteered herself as wedding photographer; and decides that she must take photos of the make-up session that starts somewhere around 0400, and goes on for nearly three hours.
The makeup is applied by people whose skills would be better utilised as house painters. Layer after layer of caked crap is applied, until the victim appears mummified. Any change in expression results in a small avalanche of powder falling off the face, powdered leprosy.
We hang around the mummification centre for a while, lying blind about how great the couple look, and then escape for breakfast. This is a highpoint, a Vietnamese place where you get a fried egg and pieces of sausage cooked in a metal tin, accompanied by a bread roll with pieces of bacon inside. It is absolutely delicious and costs nearly nothing.
Then it is back to pick up the encrusted pair of lovebirds and a rush across town to get home before 0700 when the monks are due to arrive to start the ceremony. They finally roll up around 0815 and get down to some serious chanting.
The chanting goes on for ages, and then the monks are rewarded by plates of food which they consume with great enthusiasm, this being the only meal of their day.
Next is the wedding ceremony, the high point of which is the trial by boiled egg. The man in charge of the ceremony peels a boiled egg and then inspects it closely. Apparently you can predict the success of the marriage by looking at any marking on the egg. I have a better way. The groom is Mexican and has no means of staying in Thailand. The bride is Thai and has no way of staying in Mexico. Someone has not thought this through methinks. Whatever, the peeled egg is then passed among various old crones for inspection before being given to a senior crone who sticks her fingers into it to break it in half. At this point the egg would fail even a Nigerian health inspection, but this does not stop the chief crone from ramming half of the egg into the mouths of the betrothed. It is at this point I take my only photo of the event.
You then have to eat the damn thing. Memories of having to go through the same ritual invade my mind and I resist the urge to projectile vomit.
We then tie pieces of string round the wrists of the couple and the event is over. She who must be obeyed does an excellent job of liberating us from the crush of relatives, and transports me to Ubon’s only Starbucks where we gratefully slurp on over-priced, inadequate coffee.
All that is left to endure is the evening “party” which is to be a meal in a nearby restaurant. As we enter, my eyes are drawn to the corner of the room and my heart sinks, there is a karaoke machine.
The Japanese have given us many cool electronic gadgets. They have also given us the musical abortion that is karaoke. Crap songs “sung” by tone dead morons to the totally unwarranted applause of their tone deaf moron friends. And they call it entertainment.
There is a moment in the evening when someone turns on the karaoke machine, and I come over all religious. I pray to any gods that might be listening to choose that moment to inflict a none life-threatening cardiac arrest on the eldest person present, such that the party might break up in disarray. Recently I have noticed that I tend to be the eldest person present, so have modified the prayer to just ask for the machine to erupt in a shower of sparks and and smoke. This never happens, although I have noticed a tightening in the chest and a pain in the arm.
Even though the karaoke experience is completely awful, the awfulness could be diminished by offering some decent songs. But Thai karaoke has a playlist of a million Thai songs and a handful of middle of the road dirges in English. Country Roads, Hotel California and assorted other shit. “What would you like to sing” asks the karaoke supremo, who this evening is she who must be obeyed, on the grounds that she is the only one in the room who can type in both Thai and English into the “DJ Jack Karaoke Experience” software languishing on a filth encrusted PC running Windows 95 (why does Windows never crash when you really want it to?).
Well? she asks, you have to choose something
Wait till I get you home, I growl threateningly
No, we don’t have that song
I play for time. How about “Lick my love pump” by Spinal Tap?
Nope
“Without you I’m nothing” by Placebo?
Nope
Anything by the Sex Pistols? I am on safe ground here
My Way!
I forget she has heard me extolling this version. Nooooooooo.
I am hoisted by my own petard as I am forced to drone out the offense to the ears that is My Way, although I do manage to use the Sex Pistol lyrics which would have raised some eyebrows had anyone understood them.
The evening goes downhill from there as the normally reticent Thais fight for the microphone and the chance to destroy a selection of Thai favourites. Eventually, she who must be obeyed tires of the twin duties of karaoke supremo and chief photographer; and we escape into the night. I find myself humming “My Way” on the way back to the hotel. I must learn to pray more effectively.