Sally, a friend of mine, was invited to her maid's daughter's wedding. I asked to go along, what a great opportunity! I love weddings, and different cultures are awesome in weddings!
So, we were off! We left our homes at 6:40am, as the wedding was scheduled for 7:28am, or some magical number around that time. We made good time, and arrived in the neighborhood, across town, at 7:20. We called Helen, her maid, and asked for specific directions. "Just drive into the neighborhood and ask" were our directions. :) Guess how well that went.
We did eventually find a Hindu temple, but it was the wrong one. We DID ask directions, several times. Finally, we followed Helen and got to the temple. At 8:30. Lucky for us,
everyone else had the same great directions, and they were late too! The bride was beautiful. Adorned with Jasmine type flower necklace, jewelry, and a beautiful dress, I was jealous! I wish I had had that much jewelry on when I got married! I don't know if you can see the intricate jewels above her eyebrows. Her entire head was jeweled!
Live musicians played during the ceremony. Feet washing was done by the bride and groom for their parents, rice was thrown (Just like Western weddings!) except their rice was colored yellow, and food was served afterwards. We got to eat that with our hands!
After the wedding, Helen informed us that the Hindu priest was honored to have us (white women) at the wedding, and that she had readily agreed to his request to have our pictures takend with him. Good thing we didn't mind her answering for us! He was a cool-looking Hindu priest, but I never realized they have hair on their backs, just like some American men! Go figure! That's me, the priest, Sally, and Helen in the picture. The food was a bit different, of course. This was a small
wedding, see below for the reason, but still, we could really save a LOT of money if we served breakfast like this at our weddings! There were noodles, cold and in circles. Chanai, or a lentil curry(The brown stuff with carrots). Indian 'doughnuts' which were light a light falafel taste -not sweet! And a orange, sweet potato-like mashed stuff, with raisins in it. The coolest part was we got to eat it with our hands! Good thing one of our missionaries at church had shown our family how. We were filmed for a good part of our 'breakfast time.' Helen was so happy when the wedding was over, just like a Western mom. :) One of the 'different' things about this wedding was, the couple had already been legally married for 4 years! According to Malaysian law, all they had to do was register at the Registrar office, and they're married! This wedding that we went to was the Indian tradition, which Helen and Indians in general consider "official" but according to law, they are already married. I likened it to our marriages in our temples. Legally, we can get married anywhere, but for our religious beliefs, we believe that our temple marriage is the important, binding one. Lucky for us, our temple marriage can count for our legal one. In Malayisa, it doesn't.
1 comment:
You write very well.
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