Chapter 13. It’s all over, or is it?

My Big Fat Guangdong Wedding

Chapter 13.  It’s all over, or is it?

 

Sunday morning.  Woohoo!  It’s all over.  I’m married and all the parties are done.  I can finally relax after . . . I can’t remember how long this whole thing took to plan and pull off. 

After breakfast, my darling wife  grabbed a taxi to the wedding studio to return the white dress and a couple other outfits that we didn’t end up using.  I tried to get packed while she’s gone, but my lovely daughter  decided to come over to our hotel room and interrupt me.

 

 

Still, I managed to get most of our stuff sorted and shoved into the right bags.  For reasons I can’t imagine, there’s metal foil confetti scattered throughout the suite and mixed into the luggage. 

My daughter was then shoved into a taxi to go back to her other father’s house.  The rest of us all piled into another taxi and got back to the village with plenty of time for her parents to make lunch.  Since her parents were still there, I redirected my fantasies from testing out the wedding bedding to having a nice, quiet, relaxing afternoon.  Just kick back . . .  relax . . . maybe take a nap. . . and . . .

. . . start rearranging the furniture again!     

I thought I’d successfully derailed that runaway train the week before.  It turns out that wifey’s parents had decided to invite her Aunt, Uncle, cousin, cousin’s wife, and baby over to lunch (or maybe dinner) at the house on some unspecified day during the coming week. 

This created several issues.  First, I REALLY needed to get some rest after all the entertainment of the previous days weeks months (seems like a couple of decades, at least), and rearranging everything I own is pretty much the exact opposite of relaxing.  Second, our little dining table can barely hold 5 people, much less 8 or more.  Third, I was already way behind on work because of all of this and didn’t need to spend the rest of the week moving things around and preparing for guests.  Fourth, I had foolishly been under the impression that my darling wife’s parents would understand that newly married couples are, in virtually all the cultures found on Planet Earth as well as elsewhere in the galaxy, traditionally left the hell alone after a wedding to rest, recover, and maybe actually enjoy some private time for . . . spousal benefits.

So, instead of even getting a nap (on my scale of items needed for me to survive at that moment, a nap was rated only a tiny bit below oxygen), we went out furniture shopping.   Items needed:  Some sort of display shelves and a bigger dining table.  There were two small stores nearby.  One just inside the village and one on a larger “shopping street” nearby.

The store inside the village had some shelves that I really didn’t like.  Their dining table collection was an assortment of very low-grade wooden tops bolted onto folding legs. 

The store outside the village didn’t look too much more inviting – until the clerk chased us up the stairway in the back.  The second floor had some fairly nice furniture.  None of the shelves were right, but they had small glass top dining tables that were not too bad.  After some arguments over price, my darling wife beat them down to 250 RMB.  Since we still needed shelves, we didn’t buy right away.

 

 

It was decreed decided that her parents could go back to the house and get some rest  before making dinner and that my darling and I could spend the remainder of our first free afternoon as husband and wife going at it like wild animals  quietly relaxing at home exploring every corner of one of the big furniture stores on the east side of town.     

Along the way, I gently inquired how long we would be privileged to have her parents remaining with us as house guests.  She told me she wasn’t sure.  Maybe 2 or 3 weeks.  Maybe longer.   

 

        

Sadly, the back seat of a taxi cab offers few options for relatively quick, sure, and painless suicide. 

The place we ended up in had 6 floors jammed full of furniture.  They covered the full spectrum.  From atrocious to attractive.  From tasteful to tacky.  I think they had enough furniture in stock to furnish all the houses in my village.

They had some nice glass dining tables, but those cost 3-8 times what the ones we’d looked at near the village cost.  What seemed lacking was a set of display shelves with cabinets underneath.  The few things that came close were either small or were set up with shelves and cabinet doors on both sides – useful as room dividers, but not workable against walls.  I did see a lot of things that gave me ideas for when we finally build our own house.

Finally, we worked our way up to the office furniture level.  I found an amazingly huge desk and executive chair that would make Bill Gates jealous, but it would have taken up the whole living room.  Tucked WAAAAY back in the corner was an acceptable glassed shelf and cabinet set with the floor model on sale for only 1150 RMB.  We went ahead and finished touring the building – the strange thing was that a salesgirl shadowed us on the whole office furniture level.  On other floors, each salesperson only followed for a short distance before being replaced by a different one.  Stranger still, when we went back to buy the shelves (and a coat rack which my new wife decided we needed), we couldn’t find anyone.  After a bit of shouting (I love the delicacy and grace of Chinese females in a shopping environment ), a salesgirl was found.  She said they could deliver on Monday.

One the way back, we went back to the store near the village with the glass tables.  En route, I explained to my darling that we’d probably need 2 to accommodate everyone.  We’d set up the second one as a tea table when we weren’t having larger groups over.  On arrival, further negotiations knocked the price of 2 tables down to a total of 450 RMB, with a promise of delivery on or before Friday.

On Monday afternoon, the display shelves arrived.  They barely made it up the stairs and through the doorway.  Then I had to fight to keep from losing all the space as her parents decided the best way to rearrange things and clean up the room was to shove all available stray items onto the display shelves.  I wanted to use the space for my small, but growing Alcoholic Beverages of China collection, for some of our nicer tea stuff, and for wedding gifts.  They were taking snacks off of a desk we used as a snack table and putting them on display.   I finally couldn’t take it anymore and spent some time hiding on the roof.

 

 

The rest of the week wore on slowly.  The tables kept not arriving and the other relatives decided they were coming for lunch on Saturday.  After my darling made threats of grave bodily injury asked politely, the store arranged to deliver a pair of floor models on Friday with a promise to replace them with the ones we’d ordered a few days later.  I then had to restrain her father from moving one of the temporary tables into the position we were saving for a tea table – since the table was temporary and because we needed both tables in the middle of the dining area to accommodate everyone.

Friday evening, we took them out to the local foot massage.  I guess I should have thought the timing of that through a little better.  Friday evenings are very busy in those places, so we ended up with 4 new girls.  Mine at least did a passable job popping some of the vertebrae in my neck and back (the first to succeed in this since the departure of the lovely, talented, and very strong girl #22), and the one working on my mother-in-law was reported as being ok.  My darling wife and her father were both annoyed after their girls didn’t do well.  For some reason, the girl working on my darling wanted to focus on one foot and leg and mostly ignored the other, even after my wife told her to shift to the other side.  I’ve had this happen to me a couple of times when a massage girl didn’t keep an eye on the clock and I ended up leaving with one leg massaged and the other not.  Under those circumstances, I’ve got one leg very relaxed from the massage and one not – and I find myself walking in circles. 

The next day all the relatives arrived.  I have now verified that it is possible to fit 8 adults and 1 baby at the pair of tables.  Two days later, the real ones arrived and the temporary ones went back on display at the furniture shop.

Sunday, we decided to continue this pattern of “never let me rest” – by climbing a mountain.   This one wasn’t one of the small ones in the parks near town.  This was somewhere way out on the boondocks and the park was huge.  We didn’t make it all the way to the top and ended up turning around at “Heaven’s Lake”.  It looked more like “Heaven’s Algae Pond” to me. 

Then we ended up having a late lunch at a shopping street down on the south end of Dongguan.  When we finally got home, I took a shower, fell face down on the bed, and passed out until dinner time.

Slowly, I was sinking into despair.  I really do like her parents, but live-in in-laws were not part of any prior discussion.  They have a nice apartment back in Jiangxi and have 3 more married children and 4 grandchildren there.  Had they decided that they really liked my quaint little village in Guangdong better?  Where they ever going to go home?  I couldn’t even retreat to my office, since they’d commandeered it as their bedroom.  Instead, I had a network cable running out to a chair in the living room.  I telecommute.  Doing my job is 1000 times harder if there are distractions, and there were plenty.  Like most Chinese, her mother seems to really like TV shows where the evil Japanese soldiers beat, torture, and kill innocent Chinese people (and the evil Japanese soldiers don’t even have the courtesy to do this quietly while I’m working) before some Chinese hero comes in and single-handedly kills off all the Japanese soldiers (and is occasionally even nice enough to do this fairly quietly – Go China! ).

On Tuesday morning my darling wife asked me for 400 RMB for her parents.  I asked what for and she said the magic words, Train Tickets. 

 

 

Happily for her parents, she caught me just before I was about to execute my most cunning plan ever to frighten off the in-laws.  That would have involved taking a massive overdose of Viagra (available without a prescription in China) and then doing an hour-long aerobics exercise routine in the living room twice per day, . . . naked. 

Thursday morning came.  We had breakfast.  I carried the heavy luggage (judging by the weight, I think my darling wife gave them each a few dozen bricks as souvenirs) down the stairs and out to the waiting car.  I’m sure they were touched that I stood there waving until the car got out to the main road.  I decided it would be wisest not to mention to my lovely bride of less than 2 weeks that I was really just making 100% certain that they were really gone. 

Finally, I can work in peace and quiet. 

The only disturbances now are the sounds from the industrial sewing machines next door and the occasional hammering from the metal shop at the end of the street.  It almost seems too quiet.  Almost, but not quite. 

In a few hours, my darling bride will be home from work and we’ve got a whole weekend together with no in-laws. 

I’m sure we’ll think of something to do to occupy the time.   

 

 <– Back to Chapter 12.          –> Chapter 14. It’s all over (except for the honeymoon)  –>