RICH WEDDING IN A POOR NEIGHBORHOOD

Weddings are glorious occasions, even for the poor(photo:Wikipedia)

A wedding is always a great way to experience local culture, so when I was invited to a Cambodian wedding, I quickly accepted. Since the groom's family is of limited means, I’m not expecting a fancy wedding. But I will be surprised by what I experience.

I’m told that a 'taxi' is picking me up, but upon arrival, it turns out to be a small motorbike. I should have guessed that, since there are few automobile taxis in Phnom Penh. I climb onto the back seat, and we motor off to the northern suburbs.

The reception is located in a neighborhood where the groom has family, and on arriving, I’m rather surprised at the exact location of the festivities. I was expecting a poor neighborhood, but this is the first time I’ve been to a wedding reception located on a road. Right in the middle of a dirt road!

A wedding canopy with tables and chairs, is taking up most of the roadway. Walking closer, I spot a security guard sitting off to the side, cradling an AK-47 rifle. Hopefully, he won’t have to use it tonight.

The canopy is very colorful, made of bright red and blue fabrics, decorated with balloons. Beneath the canopy are wedding sights familiar to my western eyes. A lovely cake. Fancy tablecloths. An enormous sound system. Golden chair covers, which stretch all the way to the ground. 

Just a few steps from the canopy and tables, are railroad tracks! The train hasn’t run here in years, so curious neighbors not invited to the wedding are sitting on the tracks, in shorts and t-shirts, watching the festivities as spectators. A scratchy stray dog joins them. Beyond the railroad tracks are small neighborhood houses, crowded tightly together. Some of these homes are merely shacks. There is little open space here; that’s one reason why the wedding reception is on a dirt road.

To the other side of the wedding canopy, what’s left of the road is still open to traffic. It’s not busy, but as I watch a motorbike buzzes past, followed by a cart, squeezing through with a load of pigs. Beyond the road is a swampy pond, with old plastic bags and litter lying about.

A Khmer couple takes pre-wedding photos at Angor Wat (photo:Wikipedia)

Glancing around at the well dressed wedding guests is a total contrast to the humble surroundings. What a sight!

The ladies are all done up in marvelous formal dresses. Women’s formal wear in Cambodia is much more colorful, bright and festive looking than western fashions. Each dress is one solid, bright color, and many have elaborately decorated trim. Scanning the crowd, I see many colors of the rainbow. Most guests aren’t rich either, but even poor Khmers usually have one elegant dress for these occasions.

The male guests are dressy, but more conservatively casual. Most wear formal trousers, and a dress shirt. With the evening’s tropical heat and no air conditioning, a suit and tie would be very uncomfortable here.

Entering the canopy, I’m greeted by the wedding party, and the bride is absolutely stunning. She looks like a Khmer princess, or even a queen. Her wedding dress is absolutely fantastic, Tim Gunn would approve. It’s bright blue, with a silver sash, and gold trimming throughout. There is nothing gaudy about her ensemble, it gives an air of royal finery. The bride’s hairstyle is equally fancy. Her coiffure has a reddish tint, pulled up with loops and curls, with a matching hairpiece filling out the back. Her lavish hairstyle must have taken a couple of hours to complete. It’s topped with something that looks like a cross between a tiara and a crown. 

Her two bridesmaids stand next to her attentively, looking like ladies in waiting. Unlike in western weddings, here it’s the bridesmaids wearing white. To the other side of the greeting line, the groom’s outfit is also traditional and fancy. As is true with most cultures, the groom’s wedding garments are not as flashy as those of his beautiful bride. He has a red silk shirt of Asian style, with black trousers. He looks like a young, 19th century Khmer prince. The groomsmen at his side wear similar apparel. The whole wedding party gives me a traditional Khmer Buddhist greeting. (Both hands with palms together in front, with a slight bow.) I'm handed a key chain as a wedding souvenir.

Dinner is a delicious four course meal; Khmer rice, chicken, and beef, all with various Khmer sauces. Dessert is sticky rice, and of course the wedding cake. Following dinner, the happy couple exchange their rings. Then the groom kisses the bride on both cheeks, which results in great howling by the guests. Public displays of affection are rare in Cambodia. Then the two leave to change out of their royal outfits, returning in a white wedding dress, and a white suit and tie, just like in a western wedding.  

The dancing begins, with the sound system blaring Khmer love songs and local pop music. Everyone dances Khmer style, which is different from western dancing to say the least. Khmer dancing is not partner dancing at all, it looks similar to Tai Chi. Their traditional dancing involves slow, rythmic walking movements. Rather than an open dance floor, the group circles around a central table. There is lots of rolling of the wrists with outstretched fingers, and I recall that they look like traditional apsara dancers seen on old temple wall carvings. As the hours go by, the young wedding couple changes outfits again, this time into party dance clothes suitable for clubbing.

Beer and mixed drinks flow through the night. As the hours pass, shirtless children from the adjoining neighborhood dart around the edge of the wedding canopy, collecting the empty beer cans to recycle. I’m struck by the extremes of luxury and poverty I’m seeing, which are packed literally right next to each other. Nobody seems to mind, and neither do I. The wedding couple aren’t rich, but for tonight, they certainly are. For one night only, they have become royalty, and the guests and I have been honored to be their court. This wedding may have been in a very humble neighborhood, but they have truly given me a night to remember.

I’m more impressed tonight, than I was when I visited the royal palace. 

EATING, FASHION, & DOCTOR LOVE

Lotus rootle salad....delicious!

It’s a new day, and I finish my last bite of lotus rootle salad in Au Pagolec, an open air restaurant on Saigon's Nguyen Dinh Chieu Street. Open since 1930, the downtown business is family owned. Although closed for a time, it's been passed on through three generations. Like the city's storied hotels, I wonder how this place could have remained open for so long. There are few businesses in town that survived the French colonial years, through the American war years, and into the communist years.

I asked a Vietnamese businessman, who gave me his view on successions. “When the war happened, many rich families have more than one son,” he tells me.  “They don’t  know which side will win, so some families send one son to join the Viet Cong, (communists) and the other son to join the (South Vietnam) government. So no matter which side won, they have a son on the winning side. They can keep their business.” As disloyal as that sounds, it’s not without precedence. Some rich US families did the same thing back during the American Civil War.

Most restaurants in the city are family owned places, but some foreign fast food chains have made their way into the country. McDonald’s hasn’t arrived yet, but there is a popular burger chain called Loteria, owned by South Koreans.  Representing the Americans, Pizza Hut is in town, along with the famous chicken chain, KFC. Outside each KFC restaurant in town, the face of Colonel Sanders  looks out from the front wall. One day, I pointed at his likeness, and asked a Vietnamese woman, “Who is that?”

The romantic Cafe Nirvana

“Ho Chi Minh,” she answered. Hilarious. More than a few Vietnamese mistake Colonel Sanders for Ho Chi Minh. Perhaps it’s that resemblance that helped get KFC into Vietnam.

More popular than fast food joints, are the cafés. The French influence left a strong café culture in the city, and cafes are everywhere. Walking down Nguyen Dinh Chieu, I pass the traditional Café Nirvana. With décor of dark wood, Vietnamese artworks, and antique furniture, the place has an atmosphere of decades gone by. Soft music and a waterfall complete the romantic scene. But there are few customers here.

On the other end of the spectrum, further down the street is the crowded MGM Saigon Café. This place has nothing to do with the famous Hollywood movie studio, but it’s trendy and very popular. This café with a retro 70’s interior is four stories high.  In here the DJ blares music so loud, I wonder how any customers can hold a conversation. This place is part café, part restaurant, part disco. Well, cancel the disco. I have a look at the disco on the 3rd floor, and it’s completely empty. “The club closed,” a waiter informs me,” construction.”

Odd, the club only looked empty to me, and there were no renovations. A friend later told me the more likely reason it wasn't open. “That disco was very popular, but it was also popular with the drug dealers. They sold drugs in the bathrooms. The police came and ordered it closed.”

Walking further down Nguyen Dinh Chieu, both sides of the street become lined with shops. As the Vietnamese economy grows, a middle class is growing with it. More people are getting disposable incomes, and brand names and luxury items are finding their way into the Vietnamese marketplace. Here there's a L’Oreal shop, down the street is a Levi’s factory outlet, and a shop carrying Legos and Barbie dolls. Since the city has the country’s best shopping, western name brands are hitting HCMC.

Many foreigners who live here stay away from the name brands though. Long term expats know that it’s far cheaper for them to get their clothing tailor made, than it is for them to buy brand name clothing off the rack.

The very popular, and noisy, MGM

Another nearby store is named, “Chic & Trendy”. Faceless mannequins in the front window sport outrageous fashions reminiscent of the New York club scene. These tastes are reflected in local Vietnamese fashion magazines. Nowadays in HCMC, western fashions are all the rage, for women and for men.

A Vietnamese woman buzzes by me on a motorbike, and I’m reminded that not all traditional fashion is lost in the city. She wears the national women’s outfit known as the ao dai, seen in most foreign movies about Vietnam. The traditional outfit consists of silk pants, and a form fitting silk tunic. There are slits cut on both sides of the tunic, reaching higher than you might expect. The slits form long flaps in the front and back, leaving just a hint of skin visible on both sides of the waist.

This national dress had all but disappeared, until a beauty pageant was won by a Vietnamese contestant in 1995 wearing the ao dai. The traditional outfit made a comeback, and it’s still worn in some schools, government offices, and for formal occasions.

One of my Vietnamese friends Chi, wears a bright blue ao dai every week for her job at a bank. Chi is originally from the Mekong Delta, but now lives in Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon).

“My mother was VC,” she told me. As a young Viet Cong fighter, her mother was wounded fighting Americans in the Mekong Delta. To this day, her mother cannot raise one of her arms past her shoulder because of a shrapnel wound from the war. Her grandfather was also VC, and died fighting Americans in the Delta. Her father on the other hand, was a draftee in the ARVN, the old South Vietnamese Army. He left the ARVN after only a couple of months. It’s likely he was a deserter.

Born after the war, Chi is from Vietnam’s new generation that drives the growing economy. She is a modern woman, in every sense of the word. She’s a university graduate, financially independent, and an entrepreneur. Besides her bank job, she owns two outside businesses. “I have shop at hotel for foreigner(s),” she tells me. The shop sells souvenirs to business travelers. But that’s not her only side business.

Saigon is the center of fashion in Vietnam. Western trends are popular.

“I have bar on Phu Quoc Island,” she continues. This small bar is in a growing tourist destination south of the Mekong Delta. She occasionally flies there to check up on the business.

Chi was married once, and has an adorable daughter of six. Soon after her birth she learned that her Vietnamese husband, like many urban Vietnamese men, was spending time with prostitutes at karaoke bars. While many Vietnamese wives tolerate this behavior, Chi didn’t, and divorced him. Her husband still visits his daughter on weekends. Chi has moved on, and with her current work and outside businesses, she now earns more money than her ex-husband.

Chi was born after the war, and like most Vietnamese, she doesn’t dwell on it. The subject still comes up though, even with her daughter. “My daughter ask me one day,” Chi relates, “why did Americans come make war here?”

As seen here, Vietnam's traditional dress, the "ao dai", has made a comeback.

That’s not an easy question to answer. Given what happened to Chi’s mother in the war, I’m surprised that she doesn’t dislike Americans, but she doesn’t hold a grudge. “That is past,” she says of the war, “that was so many year before.”

Chi told me that long before she had married, she used to work for a medical organization, and worked with an American doctor. They worked closely together, and soon began dating. He became her first love. ”I loved him so much,” she admits.

That love was reciprocated, and he eventually asked her to marry him.

As much as she loved him, Chi turned him down, since she believed her parents wouldn’t approve.

The doctor cried.