-^-for posterity-^-

we went to a wedding party today at noon. the entire english department was invited and we all hopped on motorbikes and were off.

the morning was full of meetings and trips to the photocopy shop. the afternoon was full of shakespeare and daniel defoe. going to a wedding party wasn’t on my to-do list.

we arrived after winding our way down a narrow, dusty dirt path. it was some sort of dyke and small and large boats churned their way up the green mekong tributaries. the wedding party was held at the house of the bride. the bride and groom met us when we arrived and both looked hilarious in their makeup. for some reason the groom wears it too. the bride looked like she was wearing an odd mask cut out of some magazine. i had met her a number of times before but didn’t recognize her at all. the groom wears some sort of makeup that covers his whole face and, i believe, some sort of lip gloss. it makes his face look much more youthful and his lips look oh, so much more moist.

the party was held in the front yard underneath large, white and red stripped tarps strung between bamboo poles. everyone’s expected to bring the couple “lucky money”. i was instructed to bring them 100,000. i brought it but forgot an envelop so the first ten minutes after my arrival were spent asking people if they had any extra “lucky money” envelopes.

the food was stale. spring rolls that had been sitting around since early that morning and odd arrangements of lunch meats. the company was relatively silent. they were all teachers thinking about afternoon lesson plans.

the last course was brought out after i had gone to the bathroom, returned, and found some old, fat man sitting in my seat. i didn’t know what to do and just stood politely by as he talked. he relinquished it. the last dish was an oddity. i have already talked about semi-developed duck eggs. they are eggs that are allowed to develop to a certain stage and then are boiled. this leaves a semi-developed duck fetus inside surrounded with yolk. the dish was full of them and some other black liquid. it was a boiling pot of semi-developed duck feta. each fetus held its shape and was surrounded with boiled yolk. their faces were buried somewhere in the yolk and they were developed enough to be covered with black hairs. everyone was surprised to see jack and i refuse this delicacy. it’s really enjoyed here. we ended up eating part of the yolk. we couldn’t bring ourselves to eat the actual fetus. the yolk was tough and texture less.