Wedding in Taiwan!

Since I got here, I've been seeing post after post pop up on my fellow ETAs' walls, proclaiming that they've been at a Taiwanese wedding feast. Some have liked it, some haven't, and all have come away talking about the lavishness of the food and traditions accompanying it. Several people have been to more than one. Yet, eight and a half months into my stay here, I had yet to experience one myself.

Until tonight, that is! My principal's daughter got married (as I noted here, I recently got wedding cake for the occasion), and as a part of the (many, many) ceremonies attending that, the principal invited all of the teachers at 漢民 (Hanmin) to the wedding feast. Let me be clear: Hamin's a big school--something between 2 and 3,000 students big. Hanmin teachers easily took up 16 or so 12-person tables.

Yet even so, our numbers were dwarfed by the assembly as a whole. According to Fiona, there were 130 12-person tables set for the wedding, which makes for a whopping 1,560 attendees! Even taking into consideration the fact that some people didn't come, there were definitely at least 1,200 people in the assembly room.

One very small portion of the hall. You can kind of see the front wall/stage area next to the no smoking sign...

Opulence was definitely the name of the game. Oh, and did I mention that the assembly room in question was in the downstairs portion of the Bao-an Temple by Golden Lion Lake, a famous (and HUGE) Kaohsiung Daoist temple?

This also can't convey scale, but see how it's got a special bridge leading directly and specifically to it? Yeah.

 (Here's a link to a more comprehensive view of how huge and elaborately decorated this place is.)

We were early (Fiona picked Ingrid and I up at my place and drove ), and spent the first couple hours chit-chatting and talking about the many many things involved in making a successful Taiwanese wedding and all the things people do to ensure good luck for the married couple. At some point, music started; at some later point, a video stream showing the wedding party taking part in all the traditions began on the several TVs around the room. Also at some point, it became all but impossible for us to hear one another.

Ingrid discovering that the cups at our first table had Coca-Cola insignias on them :)

Fiona waiting with the Academic Director's son (dressed all in green plaid, poor boy) concentrating on his video games.

Each row is another course: count 'em up, 12!

Soon, everyone was there--Alison and Maggie joined us to form a whole row of English teachers, and eventually a few other people, starting with the music teacher who shares our office, took courage to sit with us--and the feasting began! SO much seafood, ranging from lobster to an angry-looking (but delicious-tasting) fish to shrimp-flavored rice.

Oh yeah, and a black chicken soup! Because why not?

Final course: ice cream bars. We made it!

Between dishes, we had such lovely little experiences as Teacher Penguin thrusting vegetarian dishes onto our plates (I guess he didn't want them or something?), my tutoree Hal coming over for a chat (odd out-of-context encounter I should have thought about, since his dad's a Hanmin teacher), more than a few completely missed main events (we could hear a muffled version of what was going on, but could only see if they turned on the video cameras, something they failed to do for, for instance, a dance routine some group did).

Also, of course, we got to see the beautiful bride and bridal procession, which paraded around the hall for everyone to see. :)

The bride with her dad: blurry but still beautiful!

By the time we were ready to pack up and head home, my stomach felt like it would pop and I felt fully initiated into the rites of a Taiwanese wedding banquet. On the way out the bride (in at least her 3rd dress of the evening; possibly 4th) and her family gave everyone candies as they exited.

An exhausting, but wonderful experience! And now I, too, can add my post on a Taiwanese wedding to the pantheon of ETA postings; I, too, have experienced the largesse of a Taiwanese wedding, and I, too, have the bloated belly to prove it. Quite the night!