Hi, all. I'm back from Malaysia, and I can report that Ian and Juliane got themselves duly married. Here are the gory details, for anyone who's interested.
The wedding & associated events were, quite deliberately, a mish-mash of traditional Chinese and American/English Christian customs. So, for example, they had both the church wedding and the Chinese tea ceremony. Guests and wedding party members were asked to wear their own traditional ethnic clothing, so, although there was an overall color theme (dark red), the members of the wedding party were not all dressed the same. I was the best man, and I guess traditional American ethnic clothing is a shirt & tie; that's what I wore.
Backing up a bit, the rehearsal was on Thursday, June 19, two days before the wedding. Evidently, Chinese custom is that the bride and groom don't see each other on the day before the wedding, so it wouldn't do to have the rehearsal then.
The rehearsal consisted mostly of Ian & Juliane conferring with the pastors, although we did walk through the processional. So, having little else to do, I wandered around snapping pictures and generally making a nuisance of myself. There was no rehearsal dinner. No one but the Americans present seemed to consider this omission remarkable, so I guess they don't do rehearsal dinners there.
On the wedding day, Chinese custom is that the groom and his friends go to the bride's house to get her. The bride's family is supposed to make this difficult. Typical obstacles to be surmounted include the giving of an ang pau [ang pau = red envelope, generally containing money; an ang pau is the traditional all-purpose gift] and performing various ridiculous tasks. For example, Ian told us that when he had previously been part of a wedding party, they had to eat instant noodles in coffee to get the bride.
Thankfully, Juliane decided we could dispense with such nonsense and just pick her up, although her brother, as the official gatekeeper, would still get his ang pau.
So, on Saturday morning, we got into the "bridal car" -- a car decorated (tastefully!) with ribbons and flowers -- and set out from the Chai's house to go fetch Juliane, give her the bridal bouquet, and take her to the wedding. Heading down the highway at about 60 mph, it looked to me like the hood decoration was going to explode, showering downtown Kuala Lumpur with confetti, but it all stayed intact.
When we arrived, we were told that Juliane was still in the middle of a heavy make-up session, and would not be ready for a while. Then Ian discovered that he had forgotten the ang pau. Fortunately, someone was able to dig up a red envelope, and Ian found some money. Then Ian discovered that he had also forgotten the bouquet. A few quick cell-phone calls later, another someone rushed over and delivered it to us.
Meanwhile we were all sitting around waiting for Juliane. As the official wedding time (10 a.m.) approached, Ian started slowly going nuts, telling anyone who would listen how he needed to get to the church building to set up his guitar.
Around 9:45, with Juliane still unseen and Ian going crazy, we gave up and left without Juliane, leaving her to get to the wedding by some other means. I don't know whether her brother ever got his ang pau. (She went in the wedding car -- the men went in Auntie Eileen's car.)
The wedding was held at the meeting place of Damansara Utama Methodist Church, which is in a former movie theater, original seats removed. Damansara Utama is a part of the Kuala Lumpur metropolitan area (however, the church has moved, and, despite the name, meets in a different part of town). When we arrived, the auditorium was pretty well full. Ian got in a few last rants about not being able to practice his song, a succession of people told him, "Ian, you know that song forwards and backwards, so calm down," and then we were informed that the bride had arrived.
There was no particular fuss about seating the parents. Rather, it was announced that things were starting, and the processional began. Ian did the processional music, playing and singing a slightly modified version of "If You Could See What I See" by Geoff Moore and Steven Curtis Chapman. [Lyrics]
The groomsmen were myself, Laurence Thong, and Mattox Beckman. The bridesmaids were Amy Liew (matron of honor), Loo Thing Peng and Hui Siah. Everyone wore red, with Mattox and myself in western-style shirt & tie, and Ian and Lawrence in Chinese-style shirts. All the bridesmaids were in various sorts of dresses. The bride wore a red, close-fitting Chinese-style dress, with a veil that struck me as rather un-Chinese-looking (but then what do I know).
It was what I would call a "normal" wedding, complete with an uncooperative ring bearer being dragged down the aisle by his parents. It was rather more normal than my wedding, actually, since this one went pretty much straight by the (Methodist) book. The major un-normal factor was that the bride wore red. Also, among the songs we all sang was one in Malay (the rest were English).
After the ring bearer had been manhandled into giving me the rings (Ian's: plain silver-colored band, Juliane's: plain silver-colored band with diamond in a sort of recessed spot), everything went off without a hitch: processional, hymns, exhortation, vows, rings, thanking the parents, and signing of the marriage license. This last was done as part of the ceremony. Evidently, under Malaysian law I was not qualified to be a witness for some reason, so I didn't take part in the signing. (Actually, it was because this is not the real marriage certificate. The government doesn't make it easy for churches to become legal marriage registrars, and so DUMC is not recognized by the government. The two dads and the bride and groom went to sign the real thing some days earlier at a Baptist church that is recognized by the government, and it was easier than trying to coordinate getting Glenn and Amy there as well, especially since it was during a week day and Amy was working.) Also, they didn't do the candle thing that seems to have become such a hit in the U.S.
Then there was more music, they did the presentation, and Ian and Juliane exited, leaving the rest of us standing there. We hadn't practiced the recessional at the rehearsal, so I decided to wing it, grabbed the matron of honor (figuratively speaking), and went down the aisle and out the door with the others following. It seems to have been the right thing to do.
Then we all went right back in and the picture-taking began. Everyone present got a chance to have their picture taken with the bride & groom. An overhead slide was put up showing the order of the group pictures. First came the wedding party. Then Ian's colleagues at the university, etc., ending with "other friends".
Meanwhile, just outside the auditorium, under a tent, was a buffet lunch for all guests. So people were wandering back & forth between the buffet and the picture taking for a while. I didn't eat at the buffet, since we had a separate banquet planned shortly.
That's where we went next: the "relatives' banquet". A local dining hall was rented and filled with 19 tables worth of relatives and a few honorary relatives such as myself. The banquet was served in what seems to be traditional Chinese style: everyone gets a plate and some chopsticks, and huge platters of food are placed in the middle of the table.
There were nine courses in all, beginning with what I guess you'd call "appetizers", then on to soup, chicken, fish, shrimp, etc., and ending with two dessert courses. Despite a careful attempt to take only a little of each, I was pretty full by course #5.
After dinner came the toasts. The procedure for each was that the toastmaster gives the toast, followed by the cue to drink, which is "Yam Seng" (meaning something like "to success", maybe?). The toastmaster starts with a long "Yaaaaaaa ...", which the whole room joins in until all glasses are in the air, and everyone is saying "Yaaaaaaaa ..." all together. This continues until the toastmaster runs out of air (which may be quite a while), finishes with "... aaaaaam Seng", then everyone else says "Seng", and they all drink.
Then it all starts over again with the next toast.
Somewhere in there, Ian and Juliane pretended to cut a "cake". I'm not sure what the point of this was, since it wasn't a real cake, just a cardboard (?) prop. But they pretended to cut it and got their pictures taken in the process. Then I suppose the "cake" was put aside for use in someone else's wedding. There was no real cake to eat.
After the toasts and "cake cutting" and speeches (both English and some kind of Chinese) came the tea ceremony. This is a Chinese tradition that apparently goes back a long way.
First the wedding couple serves tea to each of their older relatives, one or two at a time, from oldest to youngest. The groom serves and then the bride, they are given an ang pau, and then a new relative or couple takes the place of the previous one.
Then each of the younger relatives serves tea to the wedding couple, again in order from oldest to youngest. The couple gives each of them an ang pau.
Traditionally, this serves several functions. First, the bride & groom get to meet all their new relatives and learn how they are addressed. Chinese terms for relatives are more specific than those in English; for example, there are different words for mother's brother and father's brother, where we would call them both "uncle". There are also variants for older and younger, so learning to address your relatives is a non-trivial matter.
Second, the tea ceremony provides for a large number of witnesses to the fact of the marriage; these witnesses were the legal proof of marriage in the days before widespread literacy and centralized record keeping.
For those of you who know Ian's cousin Kheng Boon: I ran into him at the banquet. He is married with two children (ages nearly 6 and nearly 3). He and his family live in Kuala Lumpur. He works in construction management, and his wife runs a Montessori preschool/ kindergarten. He invited me to dinner the following Monday.
After the banquet, most of us went "home", while Ian and Juliane went off to more picture taking (which lasted a long, long, long time). Ian & Juliane were at church the next day, then on Monday they went off on their honeymoon trip to somewhere in Thailand (the location is not secret, but I don't remember where it was).
They've gotten themselves an apartment somewhere between Kuala Lumpur (where Juliane works) and Cyberjaya a bit to the south (the site of Multimedia U. where Ian works).
Glenn has also written a very good UNIX tutorial. People wanting to learn how to use the LINUX command-line shell system will also find this useful.