Chapter 10: What Happens After Death by Shopping? Condemned to Shopping Hell.

My Big Fat Guangdong Wedding

Chapter 10.  What Happens After Death By Shopping?  Condemned to Shopping Hell.

 

The wedding shopping list of items needed grows faster than I can buy things. I’m in Shopping Hell. 

(If she were sent to the same place, I’m sure my mother would call it Shopping Heaven. )

Let me see if I can remember it all. . . .

Decorations for the house.  These were simple.  Just some nice Double-Happiness door decorations.  Very reasonably priced at about 10 RMB each.  We still need a couple of traditional red lanterns to hang on the balcony.

Bags for wedding candy. (Wedding Candy?  Bags for wedding candy???   ). Considering the ever-growing guest list, we got 100 bags.  I think that ended up only being 40 RMB.

 

 

Confetti cannons.  For those who haven’t seen one, it looks like a roll of fancy Chinese giftwrap (I wish that they made giftwrap like that).  The ends of the tube are sealed.  Near one end is a button.

 

 

Remove the safety, press the button, and the canister of compressed air built into the trigger end of the tube is released.  The seal on the other end is paper or something like aluminum foil.  If all goes well, it bursts and the paper and/or foil confetti comes out at considerable speed.

 

 

Whatever you’ve pointed it at is now covered in confetti.  I saw these for 15 RMB in a department store.  Got them for 5 RMB at a little shop near the wedding photo studio (yes, I was smart enough to test a couple of them before buying).  Ended up with about 15 or so of them.  The restaurant where the wedding meal is being held will need to hire an extra person to sweep up when we’re done with these. 

If there are any left, I’m sure I can think of something to do with them. I’m thinking of taking advantage of all those open ground floor windows I see in my village. 

Wedding bedding.  Beautiful red blankets, pillowcases, and sheets.  I saw some acceptable ones for about 400-800 RMB at the DongFu WalMart and TrustMart in DongCheng.  My darling wanted to look at Haiya Department Store (I think Haiya is Cantonese for Massively Overpriced Clothing and Stuff).  They had an incredibly cool set for only 1380 RMB.  I’m very happy with how they look. My wallet is less happy with this deal. 

 

 

Wedding candy.  Now that I had 100 bags to put candy into, I needed a lot of candy.  I’m told that tradition calls for either 8 or 10 pieces per bag (not 9 for some reason).  Naturally, the decision was for 10.  We already had some special, famous, auspicious candy from her hometown, so needed 9 more pieces per bag.  1.5 kg of traditional wedding candy was enough to provide 2 pieces of that for each bag.  That left 7 more pieces of assorted candy to chose.  I wanted something western and tasty.  I’d already had to break it to my darling that the famous brand of Chinese chocolate she pronounced as Doe Vey wasn’t Chinese and was called Dove by the rest of the world (she’s slowly getting the hint that China has a real gap in chocolate technology ). By the time we added up the traditional candy, the Doe Vey Dove, and 6 more types the cost was about 450 RMB.  The hard part is resisting the urge to go face down in a sack of candy about as big as a good haul on Halloween when I was a kid. 

 

 

I’d kept ducking the issue of rings and a necklace.  Wedding rings aren’t part of Chinese tradition, but the necklace is.  My darling wanted both and I was hoping for one or the other (preferably the necklace since that’s the proper traditional item).  Being a true man who is ready to take charge of his household, I firmly put my foot down.  Her response was something like this. . . .

followed by this  . . .   

 

and this . . .    

 

And then she got angry.

Naturally, being a true man who is ready to take charge of his household, I firmly took command of the situation and bought a pair of matching rings, plus a necklace.  I also got a gold bracelet for her, just because I wanted her to stop beating me so hard I love her so very very much.  The cost?  More than I got on eBay when I auctioned off both of my kidneys.   

 

 

My only consolation was that this was only 16% over spot price for the gold (assuming that it really is pure gold – sometimes it’s better not to think too hard about these little details).

Items remaining:

As mentioned, we need a pair of red lanterns.  They don’t cost too much.  If we can’t find the right sizes for sale, I’ve got a ladder and can go hunting just outside the village on Thursday night. 

 

 

One of my friends spent most of my birthday KTV party telling my darling fiancee and me about specific types of flowers we absolutely positively need to buy.  We’ll get those on Friday.

The hotel room for the wedding nights (paperwork on April 1st, party on April 2nd).  Not room, but rooms.  Her parents will be at the hotel too.  The total is a little over 1000 RMB.  I did make sure that the rooms will NOT be anywhere near each other. 

The wedding lunch.  The good news is that we pay per person, not per table.  The bad news is that if everyone shows up and we get a few party crashers, this could still break above 7000 RMB.  I’m not sure what would be worse.  Being embarrassed if only 30 people actually show up or being overrun with 100+ guests jamming into a room set for about 80 people.  Since the concept of RSVP doesn’t seem to have caught on here, I guess I’ll find out how good/bad it is when it happens (in 4 days  ).

Wedding karaoke party.  I’ve already paid for the biggest KTV room at the place near the restaurant.  It can easily hold 50 people.  Happily, afternoons are cheap, so this only set me back about 250 RMB.  Then there’s the matter of snacks – mandatory at KTV, and can only be purchased onsite at about 2-3 times normal retail.  That could end up being as much as the lunch or even more, depending on how many show up and if they get hungry or thirsty.

Baijiu (think Chinese whiskey ), Hongjiu (red wine ), and cigarettes  for the wedding lunch.  There goes a few thousand more.  The wedding shopping list never ends.  

 

 

I think I need to ask Obama for some of that economic stimulus money.

 

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