Ahh...finally a chance to write again. Shanghai was devoid of Internet cafes for some reason (probably the usual government crackdown or something)...our regular places were now gone.

Anyway, I'm in Beijing now at the Hainan Towers hotel on Andingmen DaJie near the Andingmen subway station. I highly recommend this hotel eventhough it is not really near the major tourist attractions as it is very new and has free in-room broadband. Back to Hohhot to continue the wedding story...

The second day of the wedding was the bride's family's turn to bring cars to the groom's house. The bride's family comes with their cars (5 of them this time) with the red balloons (as usual) to pick everyone up from newlywed's home. We cruise over to a hotel restaurant where they bride's family has booked a large banquet hall. There were 15 tables of 10 people or so each I believe. Unfortunately, most of the men were smokers...ugh. What's with this place? It's like smoking is a pasttime or something.

The bride and groom stood in the lobby of the hotel to greet their guests while Hongyun and I situated ourselves in the mostly empty dining hall. Within a half an hour, guests started arriving. What was interesting was that as they entered the ballroom they had to register and give money (usually 100 or 200 yuan...12-25 bucks). In the end, we postulated that the brides father actually made money from the whole affair as he paid no more than 20-50 yuan per person for the food (quite expensive by Chinese standards).

As the wedding starts, we realize that everyone is there to smoke and drink. No one is really paying attention to the entertainment or even the bride and groom. Most of the male guests were just consumed with smoking as many cigarettes (provided free at every table) and drinking as much baijiu (China's native alcohol) as humanly possible in the span of a few hours.

The food starts coming and piling up on the tables again. Most of it is pretty tasty but becomes difficult to eat as the plates are intricately stacked, again as a display of wealth and having plenty.

The bride and the groom as well as the bride's mother and father spent most of the time going to each table and toasting each table. Some tables made the bride and groom play games in order to toast with them. It's kind of a rite of passage. Some games included knocking loose a fake flower hanging on a string and moving a plastic beverage bottle up from the hips to the chest without using their hands. This was a fun part of the wedding in my opinion (but tiring for my brother-in-law and sister-in-law).

People started leaving about 2 hours after the banquet started. Eventually, most guests piled out and the family took a few "photos" for rememberance. I say "photos" because the videographers they hired used their video camera to video each individual standing in a photograph pose...quite curious.

More interesting things about the wedding:

The people hired to do the video were the same folks that one of Hongyun's cousins used for her wedding....the wedding DVD came out almost exactly the same (same graphics, same overlays, same sequence of events, same music, same everything).

The wedding DVD devoted a large percentage of time to the actual car ride and street signs. The videographer seemed obsessed with the cars and streets that were taken to get to various places. Maybe there is some meaning in the path taken to get to each place, but it was not apparent to me.

The title graphics for the wedding DVD was more like a commercial for the videographers (their phone number was listed at least a few times during the title graphic)...screwy.

After we left the banquet venue, we headed home for a much needed break and fresh air.