This week I am back in Malaysia and Singapore for my sister's wedding. Our family is from Malaysia while her husband's is from Singapore. In Asia, getting married is a family affair and I fully anticipate "drama" as this new couple does their best to accommodate the requests of their parents.
I am pleasantly surprised how my sister and her husband were able to pare down on custom wedding rituals while keeping the harmony with their parents. My sister's mother-in-law is a Peranakan Chinese or Baba Nyonya. Instead of wearing a white wedding gown, my sister borrowed a Kebaya from her mother-in-law while her husband was in a batik shirt. They had tea ceremony at his parent's place and their first wedding luncheon at Lai Wah Restaurant on Bendemeer Road for her husband's immediate family.There were 4-tables (approx 10 persons per table) for a nine course meal. Nine is one of the auspicious numbers in Chinese and nine means "long lasting".
As a child, I looked forward to wedding and anniversary banquets for the Shark's Fin soup and I still do.The restaurant served the soup with crab meat and I had 2 addional helping of the soup. Ah... divine. I also devoured the roasted sucking pig and the Venison Fried Hor-Fun. I craved for these dishes the following night. It was a pity that I did not pack the dishes to-go. Another popular dish was their Yam pot with cachew nuts and prawn. I am not a fan of yam but it was a delightful eating this dish and I did not have the feeling that the yam is heavy or dry. Also, I came fully prepared with my Antacid pills just in case I over indulged.
I followed the new couple to their alma mater so that they can take photograph of themselves in their wedding costume. They used to live in the same dormitory area and they shared some of their stories with me: the guys dug a small pond for throwing people into, built their own barbecue pit , my sister had boiled big pots of water to make colored starch for their man-made slide during orientations and a parade of stolen undies and panties adorned their dormitory. The pond had been covered and the barbecue pit had been removed, their good old varsity days remain etched in their memory.
The second wedding ceremony will be in Pulai Spring Resort Johor,Malaysia. It will also be a lunch banquet so that relatives and friends from afar can travel to town for the wedding. There will approximately 200 people attending the ceremony. I am looking forward for the celebration as the couple flex their wits to simplify, personalize and conclude the ceremony with a bang!
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