My Boss' Big, Fa(s)t, Chinese Wedding

This past Sunday was my supervisor's Chinese wedding. After a wild weekend of birthday, booze, beats, Beijing, my roommate and I were not the most excited to spend what we thought would be a wild Sunday of wedding celebration. At any rate, we both got up fairly early to buy a gift and be a part of our supervisor's special day. Although I was a little tired, I was a was excited to see what a Chinese wedding was all about.

We arrived about 9am to the flower shop to buy a nice bouquet of flowers as a gift for our boss. We thought we had told the florist in Mandarin how much we wanted to spend, but there was a language miss-communication and she thought we meant our price as the amount of roses we wanted. (120). So but the time she finished the massive bouquet of roses she tells us 700 RMB ($125)....WHAT?!?! After running late, lighter pockets, and feeling like idiots for not understanding Mandarin as well as we thought, we headed off to the wedding.

Once we arrived at the wedding venue I felt a little better and was just ready to eat and celebrate. We sat next to our other Chinese and foreign teachers from our school. After a brief time of socializing, it was time for the ceremony to begin.

 Like most Chinese weddings, my supervisor's took took place indoors in a hotel/ restaurant venue. Overall, experience was like a big gypsy reception. The dress was incredibly casual, everyone was wearing jeans and sweaters. Because the Chinese people are generally not religious, there was no pastor to overseeing wedding ceremony, just the MC. The ceremony had the bride and groom singing a duet together.There were bubbles, throwing of Sponge Bob toys. They even gave away a giant teddy bear. There also was no kissing of the bride at the end, just a bow and a pouring of wine and lighting candles. Each father of the bridal party did give speeches, and there was a tossing of the bouquet, but that was the only thing that felt familiar.The food though was excellent. Plates on top of plates of food at each table for people to enjoy. Also cigarettes, alcohol, and candy. Choose your vice.

The weirdest thing about the entire experience had to be how fast it ended. A typical wedding reception last the whole day. My supervisor's entire wedding was about 2 hrs and then everyone started going home! I was ready to get my party on and then it was time to go. I decided to take one of the bottles of liquor as a token for ending so quickly.

Overall, it was definitely a unique experience I will never forget!

Birthday, Booze, Beats, & Beijing

So last week was my birthday. (If you forgot to wish me a happy birthday, you still can, I will only mildly hold it against you). I decided to have a couple days of celebration with some of the good friends I met here so far in China.

My birthday started off properly when I was awoken by my buddy Craig with a bottle of Johnny Walker Red. I headed off to work and was greeted by my boss with a new watch and an enormous birthday cake. While teaching, many kids gave me random stickers and treats that they had. Later that night, my girlfriend Lora and I went and had a nice grilled fish dinner and birthday cake for a night cap :)

That Friday, a large group of my friends and I went out to one of my favorite restaurants in Tangshan. This place has good local Chinese food, live music, and a great atmosphere. The owner of the restaurant even bought me a cake!. He also sang my favorite breakup song called "Shawbee", which means motherfucker in Chinese. it is a fun song to here them play because everyone is shouting "Shawbee!!!" at the top of their lungs. After a few Chivas Royal shots in, things were much a blur. I do remember getting on stage and I spoke Chinese to the crowd, who were all quite impressed. After a few bits of Chinese food we made our way to the club where we drank, danced and laughed the night away.

The next morning I had to nurse a major hangover, but I was excited for guys day in Beijing. NO, not camping and hunting, but shoe shopping at the Silk Market!!(No homo) We arrived at about noon, ate a bit of McDonald's  and headed off to shop. The Silk Market is a very famous tourist shopping attraction, complete with 7 levels of clothes, jewelry, toys, and electronics. One must use their bartering skills to get the desired price of the fake goods they chose. My fake brand of choice for the day was Timberland boots. I haggled for a very nice black pair to 340 RMB ($55) that would have coast me about $100-120 in the States. I probably could have got them for another 100 RMB cheaper, but I am not the best haggler, and the master of haggling (Craig) was occupied by his own shoe purchase at the time. It was a definitely a fun experience at the silk market, but it can get very tiring people trying to sell you any and everything. The couple tips I would recommend about going here is know the price you want to pay for something (Usually 15% of what they originally offer) and never buy electronics. My two friends learned the electronics bit the hard way by wasting 30 RMB on a fake pair of iPhone ear-buds that sounded like listening music through muffled megaphone.

One of the best highlights of the day was randomly running into one of college friends Kellie when we were leaving the silk market! I would have never expected to run into anyone I knew from home, but I was so happy I did. We caught up briefly and went on our way. Talk about small world!!

We ended the day having a very nice Indian food dinner, and hopped back on the midnight train back to Tangshan. As my friends were busy rapping to the Chinese passengers, I was thinking about what a excellent birthday celebration week I had with new friends in a country I was still getting familiar with. As much as I miss everyone back home at that moment I felt I was in the right place at the right time.