Chinese Weddings, Panda Bears and October Holidays -- Went to a Chinese wedding with Vilma last week-end. She was going to do a speech. Rory (her husband) was still in Pinas, so Blanche and I tagged along. The wedding was on a Sunday at 5pm -- a garden wedding. The weather was nice. There were 3 other garden weddings going on; not a surprise considering that Shanghai has a population of 16million. The garden event was short. There was no priest to officiate a ceremony -- it was more like a program, i.e. bride and groom walk through a small garden aisle, walk up a stage, and the emcee introduces them to everyone (well, according to my 'expert' interpretation of what was going on as everything was said in Chinese). Then Vilma was called-up the stage. She was the main part of the 'program'. She did her speech first in Chinese (she did great! I-mandarin classes are paying off!), and then said something in English (which the emcee also translated.. o di ba, emcee na translator pa!). Then the bride and groom had sparkling red wine; and immediately after that was the throwing of the bouquet. The single girls lined-up in front of the stage (Of course I joined, couldn't help it), most of them really young ones -- teen-agers and even little girls! So the bride tossed the bouquet and it missed me by about a meter. So it really wasn't my time yet. It was good though because the girl who got it was asked to go up the stage to say something, like a speech... and I wasn't up for that. I mean, what am I going to say? "Gosh, I'm so happy I got the bouquet & looks like I'm going to get married next year."? After about 20 minutes, the program was over and off we go to the dinner hall. Food was great -- there were like 7 courses - and I was full mid-way. The couple also had to do rounds... you know, go visit every table... but the difference is, each table has the objective of giving the couple a really hard time. Our table, all of them from work, made the couple drink a lot of wine. The bride was also asked to light a cigarette using a match stick which other people in the table will always try to put (the flame) off. I think it took her a good 10min to finally light that cigarette up. They say it's tradition...a very interesting one. Now about panda bears -- I just saw this interesing feature in National Geographic TV about a breeding center of panda bears in the SouthWestern part of China. I was amazed to see how little the panda bears are at birth and how different they look (they have pink skin, not much hair). The feature followed twin panda babies from birth to about 6 months of age, and it was so nice to see them grow into cute little bears, very much like stuffed-toys! One of the key things I learned from that show was, adult Pandas are solitary animals, i.e. a year will be spent mostly living alone. They will only become social during mating season and they display some weird behaviour during that time. The female panda would do odd things like walking backwards; and the male panda would leave scent markings on trees. I thought that was really interesting. I have a friend at work who we call "panda bear" (that was what he wrote as his nickname in the company phone book as a prank, he didn't know everybody could see it) -- and he's definitely not like one. I mean, he may leave scent markings (hehehe, joke) but he's really, really social! I met-up with him once in Pegasus (a dance club, not the kind that's up there in Quezon Avenue) and he was with this huge group of friends, a bunch he's always with every week-end! Anyway, the bar scene in Shanghai on that Friday of the October holidays was rather quiet. I mean, Pegasus is usually packed, but that night, it was only full of Panda Bear's party friends. What's up with that? Anyway, after a few drinks, I decided to go home to my company paid kick-ass abode and sleep. Very good decision.