Chapter 20: KZ’s Wedding

There I was standing in front of a modest light blue two-storey bungalow that sat unobtrusively in between two other brightly colored ones. The gate was unlocked so I unhooked the latch and walked in. Small pots of jasmine and other flowers sat quietly on the left side of the front patio. A brown wooden bench, like the ones we found in school canteens but shorter, and a short pine wood cupboard, apparently for shoes, kept each other company on the left side of the main door. I knocked on the door. Minutes later, I heard steps running down a staircase, and then the door was unlocked and opened.

“Come on in,” said KZ.

About a month ago, KZ approached me to have a talk. I had known KZ since university days and whenever he talked more than his usual ‘two words in a sentence’ in a conversation, it must be about something that mattered a lot to him. We had such conversations when he told me about Laura and how he thought she might be the girl in his life, when he had received a good result for his Masters Degree, and when he had found a job for me at this current company. With the happy look on his face, I was sure he was going to tell me about something good and which meant a lot to him.

“I’m getting married, you know, the traditional ceremony,” said KZ with a grin.
“Oh finally! It’s about time huh? How long have you been ROMed? Three years?” I said avidly.
“Haha… no, two years.”
“So what made you decide to go through the traditional ceremony now?”
“Well, Laura and I have been staying together for about a year now, so we’re thinking it’s about time to really start a family.”

ROM is one of those ‘verbs’ that Singaporeans invented. ROM is actually the acronym for Registry of Marriage. The Registry of Marriage is the place where Singaporean couples sign on that piece of paper that changes their marital statues from ‘single’ to ‘married’, and swear to take care of each other till death do them apart. Well, legally, the couples are already married to each other by their signatures on that paper, but to the Chinese, they are not. There is still the traditional ceremony that they have to go through before their parents, relative and even some of their conservative friends can consider them as married. This also means that theoretically they are not allowed to have sex until they have gone through the traditional ceremony.

“Beng, would you like to be part of my brother gang?” KZ asked.
“Hey, of course! Of course I’d like to be! In fact, I’ll be pissed if you don’t ask!”
“Hahaha… okay. Let’s go tell Rose that we’ll need to apply leaves then.”

So that explained why I was at KZ’s parents’ bungalow early in the morning at seven o’clock. KZ made me sat at the living room while he went into the kitchen to get me something to drink. It was not my first visit at this bungalow, but it was the first time that the television was not on, his parents were not chatting with his father’s friends at the sofa and his sister was not chatting on the phone. For the very first time, I could hear the birds chirping on the trees outside the bungalow.

KZ walked into the living room with a glass of water. It was then that I realized that KZ was still in t-shirt and shorts.

“Hey KZ, what time are we supposed to reach Laura’s house?”
“Erm… before eight,” KZ replied calmly as he sat down on the sofa next to me.
“What? Before eight? It’s already ten minutes past seven! Why aren’t you dressed up yet?!!”
“Hey Beng, relax…”

KZ was interrupted by the honk of a car. He opened the door and looked out. It was KZ’s wedding car, a white Merzcedes decorated with champagne roses, pink ribbons and two wedding bears at the front. Following behind the Merzcedes was a white Honda decorated with the same champagne roses and pink ribbons but less elaborated. After both cars parked on road outside the bungalow, the white Honda’s driver walked over to talk to the Merzcedes driver. The white Honda driver and best man was our university friend, Chang Dek.

Knowing that Chang Dek would brief the Merzcedes driver on the day’s schedule, KZ finally went upstairs to change into his suit. In a surprisingly short moment, KZ came back downstairs, all dressed up in his black suit and holding a tie in his hand. After he took out the champagne roses hand bouquet from the fridge, we proceeded to Laura’s house.

In every Chinese traditional wedding ceremony, there is a part where the bride’s sister gang will be so excited to try out their smart ideas and the groom’s brother gang will feel so stupid to be the recipients of those ideas. It is the part where the groom and his brother gang have to go past the sister gang defending the bride’s doorstep. As compared, it will be so much easier to kill all enemies and proceed to the next level in Quake.

“Eat these up!” a plump lady in the sister gang handed Chang Dek our best man a plate of ten red chilies. After some coughs and tears, the five of us including KZ finished the plate of chilies and Chang Dek handed the empty plate back to that plump lady.

“Now do a hundred push-ups!” another skinny lady requested. Lucky for us, twenty push-ups was an easy task for each and every one.

“Okay, now I want you to…”
“Hold on,” KZ interrupted the lady with curly hair and pointed to his watch. “With any more delay, we’ll be late for the praying ceremony.”

Lynn, Laura’s sister and bridesmaid, then came to the door and said: “Let’s talk about the price then.”
“Good. How much?” KZ asked.
“Nine hundred and ninety-nine dollars.”

KZ stepped aside while I walked up to the door with a big red envelope, took out some notes from it and started counting in front of Lynn.

“Hey, what is this currency?” Lynn asked when she realized that the notes I was counting did not look familiar.
“Philippines pesos,” I replied calmly, still counting.
“No! We don’t want Philippines pesos!”
“Oh, then how about Indonesian rupiahs? Or do you prefer China renminbi?”
“I want it in Singapore dollars!” Lynn folded her arms.
“We’ve only got three hundred and eighty-eight Singapore dollars, Madam,” I showed her the pile of Singapore dollars.

Lynn counted with her fingers and pondered a while, then grumbled: “Okay, okay. We’ll take your three hundred and eighty-eight dollars. I told Laura you finance guys are cunning and I’m so right!”

With that, we managed to pass through the door and KZ stepped into Laura’s bedroom to find a beautiful bride waiting for him. KZ flipped up the veil and kissed Laura before holding her hand and leading her out of her bedroom. They then bided Laura’s parents goodbye and proceeded to KZ’s parents’ bungalow again.

Back at KZ’s parents’ bungalow, the praying ceremony began with the worship of the heavens and the earth then paying of respect to KZ’s ancestry. After the praying, Laura changed into a traditional Chinese wedding dress known as ‘kua’. Laura would be wearing that for the tea ceremony.

As a sign of respect, KZ and Laura knelt as they offered tea to KZ’s parents and elder relatives. For the younger ones, they just bowed as they offered the tea. In return, they received lots of ang baos and some gold jewellery for Laura. By the end of the ceremony, Laura looked like a Christmas tree with her gold necklaces and gold bangles.

It was then already noon time and KZ’s relatives had already cooked dishes of delicious vegetarian food to be served as lunch. Vegetarian dishes were served because both KZ and Laura’s families were vegetarians.

KZ, Laura, Lynn, Chang Dek and I finally had to chance to sit down and chat.

“Hey Laura, how do you feel? Tired?” asked Chang Dek.
“Not really tired. But I’m feeling very happy. Happy to be officially married to KZ,” Laura grinned with a happiness-filled smile and a pair of happiness-filled eyes looking at KZ.
“So we’ll be looking forward for a dozen of little KZs and little Lauras in the near future?” I nudged KZ.
“Yeh, don’t make my little cousin jumped for nothing!” said Chang Dek.

Chang Dek was referring what happened a few days ago when the bridal bed was set. The Chinese believed that a new bed must be used by the wedding couple on their wedding day, thus although KZ and Laura had been staying together in their flat for the past one year, they had been sleeping on their mattresses in two different bedrooms. Their new bed was only purchased about a month ago. On that auspicious day when the bridal bed was set, a red tray of dried food like lotus seeds, dried longans and red dates was placed on the bed. Chang Dek’s nine-year old cousin then jumped on the bed to bless it with fertility. Once that ceremony was over, nobody was allowed to touch the bed except for KZ and Laura on their wedding night.

That night, the wedding banquet was held at a famous vegetarian restaurant in town. Instead of the usual shark fins soup, fish, chicken and prawns, we had rice vermicelli and mushroom soup, mock fish, mock chicken and lots of vegetable dishes. Though vegetarian, the dishes were delicious.

Because it was a vegetarian restaurant, no alcohol was served. Traditionally, tiers of champagne glasses would be stacked up like the shape of a wedding cake and the wedding couple would fill the glasses by pouring a bottle of champagne from the top. Even that champagne was replaced by a bottle of sparkling juice.

After the sparkling juice filled champagne glasses were distributed to KZ and Laura’s families for toasting to the friends and relatives, KZ gave a touching speech to his and Laura’s parents, thanking them for the upbringing of the both of them. That was the first time that I heard so many words coming out of KZ’s mouth. The wedding couple then went around table by table to give everybody a toast. At that point, I felt that KZ must be feeling really lucky to be a vegetarian. Conventionally the groom would be sabotaged by his friends and made to drink glasses and glasses of liquor till he got drunk. Because it was a vegetarian restaurant, the joyous KZ had no problem drinking glasses and glasses of sparkling juice.

By ten o’clock, the banquet was finally over and the wedding couple and their parents stood outside the restaurant to shake everybody’s hand and thank them for attending the banquet. After the last guest had left, KZ thanked his brother gang for all their help.

“So dude, you can finally sleep on a real bed tonight,” I teased.
“Yeh, that’s the one thing that I’m looking forward to now,” KZ grinned with a pair of tired eyes.