The Gong-Wing Chronicles: Homecoming Part III

The long awaited day had finally come. It wasn't just any day, it was 7/7/07, the luckiest day imaginable. I guess 7/7/77 would be even luckier, but I don't think Tuan would want to wait until he was 104 years old before getting married. And despite the lucky connotation this day's date held, Richel and my day started where it left off: late.

We were only a couple of minutes behind which isn't bad, and we were in the car on our way to Thuy's house for the wedding. However, as I soon learned, it was rather challenging driving over to her house given the instructions. Not because the instructions themselves were wrong, but because of the language....barrier? between Richel and I. Now in case you couldn't tell, Richel's native tongue of Tagalog has very heavy Spanish influence and absolutely no French influence. I, on the other hand, have studied Japanese, Chinese, French, and just a tad bit of Italian. No conquistodors for me. So while listening to Richel read the driving instructions, I had to translate from Spanish-accented English in to French. For example, Jeen dark boulevard was really Jeanne d'Arc Boulevard. Or like, Ben-no-IT-o was really Benoit. Suffice to say, we got lost for a bit. But that's okay because we quickly found our way, again. But we finally found the place, as it was impossible to miss 30 people dressed in black suits standing on the corner. Either that or the Prime Minister's secret service was taking a lunch break in the suburbs.

So there we were, preparing for Tuan's wedding in traditional Asian style. Very cool, very cool. I've never been to a traditional Asian wedding before; I've only seen it on TV (Young and Dangerous IV - starring Ekin Cheng and Gordon Chan). I even got to participate, which was way cool.

The time finally came for the procession to march upon the bride's house. And we did so under the curious gaze of all of Thuy's neighbors. As we entered the house, we presented Thuy's family with the gifts and headed straight for.... the back room? There were so many people in the house upon entering that there literally was no room to go except for the back room. So there we all sat and wondered what would happen next. After about 5 minutes, someone came in to the back room looking for "Brian and Vince." Hey! That's us!

We immediate hustled back in to the living room where everyone stood. Apparently, Tuan wanted his friends to stand behind him so Brian and I had to climb over a few people to get there. But we got there. We then watched Thuy come down the steps and get married to Tuan. I'm not exactly sure how it all happened, as the ceremony was performed all in Vietnamese, but I understood what was going on. The part that amazed me the most was when Thuy and Tuan were bowing in front of the altar with their eyes closed, and they were bowing in perfect unison. We were all so happy for them.

After it was over we all headed out to the backyard, ate, took pictures, and hung out.

We then had a short hiatus. While the bridal party went off and took pictures on location, the rest of us dispersed until the reception. Excellent! Time for a short nap. We then made a mad dash back to the hotel so that we could sneak in some quality rest time, but by the time we made it in to the room there wasn't much time left to spare. We then headed back out after a short period of time, making our way to the Hilton.

Richel and I arrived at the banquet hall a bit early, as we were assigned to be part of the set-up crew. None of us minded at all, as we were all more than happy to help Tuan and Thuy out during their special day. Besides, we all knew how hotels could really screw you over and so we did our best to make sure everything was done correctly.

Part of our task was to put on all the chair covers and secure them with tying a ribbon. Ironically, my ribbon was the most popular. I don't really understand why, and in fact I thought Richel's ribbons were better. Reminds me of the time I was in 7th grade and everyone was praising my neat hand-writing. Oddly enough, my patients all praise my hand-writing to this day.