My eyes burned and my lips felt glued to each other, both by-products of a fan just outside the boundaries of my mosquito net, set on the high, and pointed more or less at my face. As I tried to blink the burn away and lick my lips back into something resembling skin and not shoe leather, I became slowly resigned to the fact that this was the big, final awake of the day and not just a temporary state between stints of peaceful resting. Eventually, I showered and shaved and completed the ritual of donning 30% DEET armor [1] before heading out to my breakfast lady for pork and rice and, since it’s Friday, a cup of pour-over coffee from a local cafe [2].
1. I’m sure the effects on my skin aren’t great, but probably preferable overall to dengue fever, Japanese encephalitis, malaria, chikungunya, or Lymphatic filariasis...especially since I don’t know what most of those even are.
2. My French Press with the same raw materials gets the job done on a daily basis, but the Khmer woman at the cafe has the touch of a master craftsman. It’s become my Friday treat, replacing french fries and beers at Happy Hour later in the day.
As I prepared to mount my bike in front of the house, the music from the wedding ceremony that woke me up was clearer...but maybe a kilometer away, and unlikely to cause me any great disturbance over the next two days [3]. Checking to the right for traffic before setting off, I discovered something much more threatening: the telltale skeleton of a wedding tent, canopy already in place, three houses up the dirt road. Buckling my helmet and riding off in the opposite direction out of spite, I mumble a dispirited “Fuck.” under my breath. If the three grandchildren who’ve already attained some power of speech end up learning any English from me, I don’t want it to be that. It’s a country with 14 million people, I think to myself. How is it possible that there’s always a wedding going on within a klick of me?!
3. Yeah, that’s right...two days.
The wedding next door began later that day, and it was every decibel as bad as anticipated. After- lunch naps evaporated as the music coming from the wedding was louder in my ears than the music coming from my headphones, regardless of shut doors and shut windows. Earplugs help dampen the noise, but even they are not enough...
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Evidence enough of that was my trip to fellow K6 Beth Ann’s site in early January for a wedding, one of the few times I’ve visited another Volunteer’s site that wasn’t within biking distance. I was in one of those moods where I had been working too much for too long...maybe I wasn’t out on a LIMB, but I sure as hell wasn’t feeling EPIC [4].
4. LIMB: Lonely, Isolated, Miserable, Bored/Angry; EPIC: Empowerment, Protection, Integration, Connection. As you may have guessed, these are acronyms from a Peace Corps global training session about dealing with life as a Volunteer in the field. After that, we exercised our ABS.
It was a Friday night, so we were in town, hitting various establishments and legitimate social clubs. Beth Ann and Sally showed up with three Canadian backpackers that they had met over the course of New Years and who were now swinging through Battambang on their way out of Cambodia and into Thailand, part of a year-long, worldwide trip. Typically, I loathe backpackers: they’re dirty, they wear stupid clothes, and they’re unfortunately ambassadors of American/western culture as much as we are. However, these guys were pretty cool, more likely than not owing to the fact that they were Canadian.
In between my rants of how I was about ready to “lose it” and Beth Ann needling me for being “Posh Corps” [5] because my village wasn’t small enough, dusty enough, or rustic enough, she invited me to join the group that would be traveling to her site the next day for a wedding in her neighborhood: herself, Sally, and the Canadians. “You can get away from your family, away from your site, have a good time and see what it’s like in a real village. And you’ll have to speak Khmer!” Why the hell not?
5. See Core Expectation #3.
6. It should be noted that I inquired into this topic long ago in preparation for an English Club lesson comparing American and Khmer weddings. There might be some discrepancies between my account and reality.
7. My notes only list ceremonies and events for two days. Maybe it just feels like that music continues for three or more...
In the afternoon of day one, the monks arrive to perform blessings. This is typically preceded and followed by a loud speaker blaring wat music: a endlessly looping collection of wooden xylophone-esque instrument banging and rhythmic drumming. The monks’ blessing is also broadcast, a deep, resonant, monotonous chanting done in Pali, the ancient Indic language of the sacred texts of Theravada Buddhism. After this, the bride-and-groom-to-be take a walk together, pose for photos, and participate in a ceremony called “cut hair, take a bath” [8].
8. This may have been only for the bride; my notes on the subject are over a year old, and guests outside the family are not involved in these ceremonies.
As the afternoon of day one cedes to night, the bride and groom separate, returning to the homes of their respective families which, more than likely, are still their homes as well. The bride is joined by eight additional people, four males and four females, for the “leaf cutting ceremony.” Leaves are cut and a cake is made. Presumably, the leaves are part of the cake, but I can’t say for sure. Meanwhile, the groom is back at home for a different ceremony with a respected elder.
Day two kicks off in the early morning for the bride, who must get her hair and make-up done. Typically, Khmer women wear no make-up or very little, while the bride will have “the works” done for her wedding. At the one wedding I attended where I actually knew the bride in daily life, she was almost impossible to recognize after the transformational process of hair extensions and intricate styling, make-up and glitter and false eyelashes. It certainly keeps her busy that morning. I’m sure the groom gets to sleep a little bit later, but he’s still up early with three [9] of his groomsmen to do some praying with “an old man” [10]. A party of close guests and family will join the groom and his groomsmen at the groom’s house, at which point they will walk to the bride’s house, bearing food for the bride and her family. The bride and groom sompeah [11] and get strings tied around their wrists.
9. And ONLY three!
10. If this is the same or a different old man from the night before, I really can’t say.
11. Bowing with hands in front of the body in “praying” position, the more revered the receiver, the deeper the bow and the higher the hands in front of the body. The same move is used in the formal greeting.
Lately, I’ve taken to biking in “Khmer speed,” a rather relaxed pace and a result of either diminished energy from a nutrient-deficient diet or of a desire to avoid any extra strain under a broiling sun or a combination of both. It is, indeed, less strenuous, and for me holds the added benefit of reducing the amount of sweat I exude during the short trek between home and school or school and home. I turned off the busier, paved road leading to a petroleum depot onto the dirt road that is our street. Of course, the tent is still up...it’s only day one. Cars are parked helter-skelter on either side of the narrow road, and people are crowded around my host sister’s shop attached to our house, buying supplies before heading back to the celebration.
Behind the wedding tent is a pole, probably 30 feet high. Atop the pole are three conical loud speakers [12], angled off into the distant reaches of the earth. Throughout the morning and lunch and the early afternoon, those speakers had been blaring music so loudly that the only conversation my host mom and I could muster was her saying, “NOISY!” and me smiling and nodding in reply. For the time being, they had fallen silent. The secondary bank of speakers under the tent was pumping dance music, but at least we were spared the loudspeakers. The noise armistice continued through dinner, and as I fell asleep around 10 PM, the dance music wasn’t any louder than the television in the living room on any given night.
12. Similar to the ones used to warn people in Newport about approaching tsunamis, according to my mom.
You enter through a narrow passage, lined with the same bride’s maids and groomsmen and family that will thank you on the way out, and walk into whatever open space they’ve requisitioned to erect the wedding tent [13]. You and your party are directed to any of a number of round tables which have ten plastic chairs, nicely covered with faux silk, jammed into a space that would comfortably sit maybe seven or eight. If you and your friends take up all ten seats, you’re in double luck: first, as soon as the table is full, the food will start arriving; second, filled with people you know, the period before most wedding goers are drunk when there’s nothing to do but stare awkwardly at people around your table will be a little better because you’re with your friends.
13. Underneath a wedding tent is international waters: all of the constraints of Khmer society, which is fairly conservative on a regular basis, are lifted. Maybe single young men and single young women who are not family still will not sit next to each, and maybe women will still not be drinking...but pretty much anything else goes.
Why can’t you just talk to the people at your table, whether or not they are your friends, you ask? Because just like the gift-giving and the round tables for ten and the plastic chairs with covers, there’s another traditional part of the Khmer wedding that immediately puts the kibosh on any and all conversation: a sound system that’s WAY too loud and powerful for the venue. The music that’s being blared around the neighborhood via loud speakers on a pole is the same music that’s being blared under the tent through a bank of 15’‘ speakers, resting on a pile of subwoofers and topped by a row of tweeters.
14. Niem is essentially a fish purée with slices of chilies added which is wrapped in plastic and boiled until it becomes solid and sausage-like. I believe it’s found all over Cambodia, but we have a special type up here.
15. Ice is provided by wandering boys and girls with buckets and tongs.
16. “Cheers,” but sometimes functionally meaning “drink the whole damned thing.”
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17. That, and a fiddle made of gold. And a donut. Too many soul-selling pop-culture references?
These are the times when I form my darkest thoughts about Cambodia, thoughts that are so ugly and hateful that I hesitate to give them voice in private correspondence with family and close friends, let alone on a blog that, while including a disclaimer, links me to the federal government and one of its most sympathetic agencies. I could see an immediate return to sleep was hopeless, so I checked my battered iPhone to see if my jury-rigged, lo-watt WiFi network was still working. Fire off a few angry words on Facebook, see that my Twitter feed is jammed with updates from Day Two of the Major League Baseball amateur draft [18], and get my Lumosity brain training in before grabbing my earplugs from my desk drawer. “Fuck your wedding music!” is the mantra of the morning, but I manage to fall back asleep around 7.
18. One Titan upperclassman in the First Round, another late in the Third, no major commits in the first two days. Not bad.
19. I missed this event at my own brother’s wedding because I was outside at a table with a $5 bottle of Corona and my friend-cum-date trying to regain my composure after delivering an incredibly touching toast to Andy and Kate and how they were representative of the American Dream, my main duty as the Best Man. The pictures looked nice, though.
At a Khmer wedding, the round tables and plastic chairs are jammed in so tight that it’s a challenge to get from your seat to the bathroom; there’s no place to dance. So, at a designated time, tables are moved and a makeshift dance floor emerges. But wait a second, aren’t they going to move that table...the one with the fruit and flowers on it? No, they aren’t, because we’ll dance around the table. Traditional dancing at a Khmer wedding happens by forming two concentric circles of enthusiastic wedding goers [20] with the table of fruit and flowers in the center. Next to your partner, which can be of the opposite sex [21], you slowly shuffle counterclockwise while gracefully flipping and tossing your hands and fingers around in sort of a Southeast Asian hula. If you’re me, you do this for about three rotations or five minutes [22] before slipping out of the circle to dart back to the safety of your table and the flat, warm embrace of a fresh beer. If you’re still me, you’re at your table for about 45 seconds before middle-aged dancing Khmer women beckon you back to the circle and smiling, laughing Khmer men push you back to the dance floor, no doubt thinking, “Better him than me!”
20. Typically middle-aged women and hapless Westerners, in my experience.
21. Anything goes under a wedding tent, remember?
22. Whichever comes first.
23. Meaning like on a big dance floor, as in American weddings.
Eventually, the dancing and the party dies down, and people begin to file out. If it’s a lunchtime reception, the guests will resume their typical day; if it’s a nighttime reception, the male guests tend to parlay it into another informal gathering involving more music, more socializing, and more drinking. As you exit the wedding, you hand your gift over to the bride and groom. Remember the bride and groom? This was their special day, after all, yet they’ve been shockingly absent from the story of Day Two thus far.
The bride and groom spend most of their own wedding party posing for portraits and changing their outfits, because each portrait has to feature them in a different outfit than the portrait they just posed for. If you ever see a Cambodian wedding album, you’ll think you’ve stumbled upon a 12th century illuminated manuscript of the Holy Bible because it’s so big, thick, weighty, and intricately decorated with gold leafing and sparkles. However, the bride and groom reappear to thank all of their guests and wish them well before retreating back into the house to begin their new lives as a married couple, which I’m sure must be absolutely terrifying.
Ever since I came home the day before, the wedding had been playing tricks on me: the loudspeakers would fall silent just long enough to lull me into a false sense of security before cranking back up and shattering my spirit. All throughout Saturday morning, I engaged in the following ritual: the speakers kick on, so I stop my own music and put in ear plugs and go about whatever I was doing [25]; the speakers stop, I take out my earplugs and start my own music again, going about whatever I was doing. Every thirty minutes or so, a new sense of false hope hangs around momentarily before being dashed to the ground. I get to thinking, Is false hope actually worse than having no hope? At least with no hope, I know there’s no hope.
24. An improvement, undoubtedly.
25. It was Saturday morning, so it was chores: washing clothes, sweeping my room, taking out the trash, etc.
Before long, I get smart to the wedding’s tricks. Every time the music stops, I run to the window in the dining room and look for the loudspeakers perched atop the pole. And every time, there it remains, a visual symbol of my oppression, like looking to the west and seeing the Berlin Wall.
After I finished lunch, I washed the dishes and collected my laundry, hanging up slacks and work shirts and tee shirts and shorts outside and bringing underwear, socks, towels, kromahs, and a top sheet into my room to dry on or around my mosquito net. At 12:30, it sinks in that it has been quiet for awhile now, quiet without me even noticing. I rushed out of my sparkling room into the dining room and gazed out the window, expecting to be disappointed yet again.
But this time, the peace will be lasting. No more loud speakers, no more pole. No more Checkpoint Charlie, the Wall has come down. Another weekend, another couple of weddings, and I’ve survived.
“Khmer Weddings:” just another entry on my list of things that I’ll never have to deal with again beginning with the relatively near future.
Until next time,
- N