The wedding next door
On the Saturday night, coming back from Ban Mao, I finally just left one party for another one. The house next to the GH was celebrating the wedding of one of the daughters. With the two backpacker girls from the GH, we decided to go and say hello. No sooner had we turned into the street that the young one began to scream their hello and that old ones ushered us inside. Uh... Hello !
We were given food, alcohol (er... not the 60% rice whishky, thanks. Beer is ok, yes), I had to sing with the mike in front of everyone, had to escape from the old ones to try and "talk" with the young ones.
And then a guy arrived (the one with the blue-striped polo) ended up inviting me to his table with his friend. My first impulse was to say No and then I followed. Let's just say that... Western girls have a reputation here, and not the best one. So many guys look at us in the streets, estimating their chances. Just an eye-contact and they assume they can talk to you for one hour. Just a smile and they assume you're interested and you'll say "yes" if they just ask you out. Shafiq, my Malay little brother, told me how some of his friends react when a tourist happen to smile at them. It's scarry ^^; I'm happy Azlan, Shafiq and Pika are not like that :) Because I'm smiling all the time...
So... just find a good balance so that they don't get false hopes. Like "don't talk always with the same one" or "danse only with the girls, not with the boys" At the end of the day, they still try to flirt with you and they still say "soai blablabla" (beautiful) when they think you don't understand one single thai word. But it's much better ^^
And thus I found myself with about ten youngs, accepting a drink, dancing with one of the girl. My glass was never empty, it's like magic. We introduce ourselves. In Thai. I know just enough word to say "My name is Gaelle, I'm French and I don't speak Thai" Obviously enough, hearing me speaking Thai, they don't believe me and they begin talking to me. Hum... sorry... Don't understand. No, I don't understand this either. No, I don't speak Thai. ... They don't speak English but for the famous "I love you". So we settled for drinking, singing and dancing. And smiling a lot.
Weddings are important events in Asia. It's the opportunity to show your "wealth" to your neighbours. Families spend a lot of money not to lose face by offering a poor ceremony. It's all for the show, but they can spend all their savings sometines. You have to celebrate and make a hit. I guess it's a kind of good omen for the newly-weds.
So you always have an audio something, with mikes and everything, a DJ (a friend of the family ^^) and so on. As for myself, what I just loved was the car. It was an old white GS kind of a car, like the one we had when I was 4 y/o, with green and red Christmas garlands around. So ... old and odd. So cute in a way !
Old Thai song by old Tai Yai
My friend Stripped Polo. Red T-shirt was someone real nice too. The kind of guy that would have been my friend if we were in France. But here I'm not able to talk to him... The girl in front of him is a crazy one but she's cool. The bride and the groom are on both sides of her.