Chengdu - a chinese wedding

A mind that is stretched by a new experience can never go back to its old dimensions.
[Oliver Wendell Holmes, quoted in John Smither's: "Greater Than a Tourist - Chengdu Sichuan Province"]

We got into Chengdu late night, and found a taxi for the fantastic Fairmont Hotel. Despite the shortness of the stay, we enjoyed it very much, not the least their great brunch. At noon we departed with a driver Teng Yan (Tina's brother's wife) had sent, and Nicolai (Tina's brother) assured us, that he knew the way. However, once we got to the small backroads about two hours east of Chengdu, he was making quite a few phone calls and U-turns, and in the end we were sitting in the middle of nowhere with no knowledge of where we were going, and a driver we could not speak to. Lovely lack of control of the situation, and we were in no hurry - probably a healthy exercise for many.
As we had stopped in front of a temple, we decided to have a look, while waiting for (more) assistance, and great was our surprise, when we suddenly saw Kirsten, Knud's (Tina's father) girlfriend in the middle of the whole thing! As it turned out, the wedding was actually to take place at that very temple, only the driver didn't know. We had arrived.



We had a look around the temple, which turned out to be quite large. At the top of the hill (about 400 stairs up) a path led to the upper part of the temple, which radiated the authenticity that many other things lack in China, and it was a thrill to step back into another world, and discover the many layers of the temple and its different parts. The monks would address us in chinese, and smile strangely when slowly understanding, that we actually didn't speak a word of the language. The ancient world image was only broken once, when a young guy used his phone for translation, asking where I was from and if he and his friends could take a photo with Troels.
In the evening we were invited for dinner in Teng Yan's (former) home, in the village where she grew up. A wholesome chinese experience, we were served about 20 different small dishes, some of which were delicious (to us), and others a bit too exotic for our taste. And we held a little back on the "white wine" (chinese rice snaps).



We had been told, that the wedding would start at 11:30, but at 6:40 we were told to get up, as we had to go get the bride. We folded on this, as we could not get the kids up and dressed at the pace required. Others went and were part of the ritual of the groom knocking down three doors at the bride's house, defended by family and girlfriends. Mads (a danish friend of Nicolai's, who is also married a chinese) later explained that the chinese simply don't see the chaos in their ways, probably because they are so used to it. It is simply the culture, and somehow it explained a lot.
In the last hour leading up to the start of the wedding a lot of local people started showing up, and once everybody had said hello to Nicolai and Teng Yan, the ceremony started. At first there were a few performances (by the wedding organisers), and then a "conferencier" started calling up the bride and groom and their respective fathers. They exchanged woes, first to the fathers and then to each others. At the end the whole party cheered, and the ceremony was complete. And then happened something unexpected - as the food was served everybody sat down and quietly ate. It was the first and only time this happened, but it clearly played a central role in the festivitas.



In the afternoon, most of the local guests had left, leaving about 30 of us, half danes, half chinese. Only the local english teacher and one other person could speak any english, and in the light of this, it was fun to see how especially Storm had no problem playing with the chinese kids his age. The iPad was of course a hit, but they also ran around climbing anything they could. Astrid enjoyed her dress, but afterwards changed back to her beloved chinese dress, which fitted the occation very well.
In the evening we had dinner (same as lunch... and roughly like breakfast!), followed by another ritual taking place in the "bridal suite", though this time less clear in purpose/representation. The finale came with the darkness in the shape of about ten really large boxes out in front of the temple, which turned out to be a fabulous firework, reminding us europeans who invented this stuff. WOW.



The day after the wedding, there was this great post-party atmosphere, with everybody milling around, some packing, some cleaning up. And after saying goodbye to everybody, Danes and Chinese, we departed about 9:30 and arrived back in Chengdu (at Hilton, which turned out to be affordable) a little after noon. We got some lunch, and Troels then did a short venture into the city (taking the metro to Wuhouci Temple), while the rest of the family relaxed and went for a swim in the pool. With the darkness we could enjoy our great view of the buildings at night and traffic below, which certainly gave scale to Chengdu. Afterwards, we went for dinner back at the Fairmont Hotel, and stayed up until 22:30, when we caught a taxi for the airport. The plane departed 02:30, and we all quickly fell asleep, likely dreaming of all the fantastic adventures of the past two and a half months.