Battambang and Khmer weddings: Another adventure

One of my Khmer friends from work asked me to present a contemporary dance duet at her wedding. She was having two -- one for her family in Battambang and one in Phnom Penh. I asked one of my students, Dara, to perform with me, and this week, we went to Battambang for the first edition. Thus follows is an account of the occasion. 

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It starts in a bus station. Activity everywhere. There’s a window for tickets, and a window to send/receive goods, people sending things on buses because the post doesn’t actually work – though, really, this is the post. Where do you want it to go? The driver will drop it.

Every so often, a fine spray of cool water spouts from the ceiling like the fire extinguishing system in a museum, and people wait, for the bus or for their friends.

We (being me and one of my students, Dara) get on the bus. The drive is long and even longer for the fact that something in the bus breaks – I’m not sure what, but it causes the air conditioning and the karaoke videos to stop and the driver to drive with the main door open, slower than usual. I hear him on the phone and though I don’t understand, I know something’s wrong. Not good. I ask Dara to eavesdrop and translate for me. An arrival time of 6:30pm becomes 8:30pm.

Along the way we stop a couple times. Someone discovers I speak Khmer and reads the tattoo on my leg and suddenly I’m a celebrity and the ladies are asking for photos. I tell Dara, “Barang speak Khmer, everyone wants a picture.” Mostly, I spend the time reading, or eavesdropping on Dara’s endless phone conversations.

Dara and I on the bus. 

We get to Battambang, and find our way to a hotel, and then food. Dara spends the whole time on his iPhone. Oh well – he’s a teenager. I watch the girls run around and wonder when the food is coming.

Dara digilently on his phone. 

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The next day starts at 5:45am. Dara and I, bleary eyed, try to get ready in time for our pickup at 6am from the hotel. An Uncle and Aunt of my friend are waiting to take us to the house, where a tent has already taken over the street and music is blaring. I’m led inside to change into the Khmer traditional clothes I’m being lent. My friend Leak is there, unable to turn her head, a competent gay guy confidently turning her into a goddess.

An Aunt has been assigned to keep me company. The guests are arriving, sitting in the row of chairs along the tent. The ladies group together, either bleary-eyed like me or looking, as wedding guests do, thrilled at themselves and their fancy outfits, all of them in brilliant colors. I can see the family resemblances across the faces. The older women are in special chairs, mostly in brown, calm and smiling. The men are at their own end, looking somewhat subdued in their plain colors, button up shirts and trousers.  

Me in my traditional clothes and the Aunt in charge of me. 

The wedding itself lasts over six hours. There are at least five or six different ceremonies, starting with the parade of gifts. The Aunt in charge of the Barang hands me a silver platter with a box of sweets on it, and everyone, some sixty strong – each with their own gold or silver platter with fruit or sweets – goes on a parade around the block, the musicians, the parents, and the groom in front.

My "gift."

The parade to start the ceremonies. 

No one is more beautiful than a woman on her wedding day and Leak is no exception. Over the course of the morning, she appears in at least six different outfits. Each ceremony – hair cutting, tying of bracelets, exchanging rings – is separated by a change of clothes. The guests mill about as any guests at a wedding, wondering how long the ceremony will take, except here there is food to eat, breakfast and lunch. The close relatives vanish into the room off the tent every so often to perform their duties of giving gifts or whatever it may be, then return and wait at the tables. The musicians sit to the side and play, not watching anything – but it doesn’t matter, because the MC has a microphone and the speakers are cranked.

The bride and groom and all the gifts. 

Beautiful Leak in outfit 3 or 4. 

The relatives are so kind, including me in the ceremonies, finding places for me to sit, and commenting on my outfits – I change once. They love that I’m wearing traditional clothes, and tell me I look beautiful. I’m the only barang around and everyone is curious, but very kind.

Dara vanishes sometime in the morning and after lunch the early morning is catching up. The mother of the bride sends me off with a different set of Aunt and Uncle and a packed lunch for Dara. He eats and I sleep, waking up a full hour later and thinking I only dropped off.

We – or that is, I do, and Dara decides to come with – decide to go off in search of coffee. I look up the main coffeehouse in Battambang and off we go. It’s very close – the city is small, and quiet. The buildings – at most three stories high – seem very short in comparison to Phnom Penh. I wonder where all the people are.

We run into someone we know – the guy who heads Krom, which Dara’s sisters are part of, and his daughter, and they join us for coffee. We spend a lovely time chatting.

A little bit and a walk to an ATM later, it’s time to go to the wedding reception. Yet another Aunt and Uncle come to pick us up. We are ushered to the artists room, where the same competent gay guys are hanging out. They want to know if I’m planning to do any more makeup. I say I don’t have any, and suddenly I’m ushered into a chair, and one starts painting my face like an artist. When he’s done, he starts on my hair, and some half hour later, the transformation is complete.

Getting my face painted. 

Ready to dance. 

Leak arrives in a rush and says there’s a problem with the music as she’s ushered into a new outfit, this one a long beautiful white dress. This prompts a rush of activity. Dara runs off to deal with the sound people, and when he gets back, we are asked if we can dance now. I ask for ten minutes to warm up, which is granted. The MC is given our names, I triple-check Leak actually wants me to say something, and then we are out the door.

The stage is tiny and we are way off the music, waiting for the end of the first song much longer than usual, so we improvise – Dara is right there with me, thank heavens. It’s not perfect, but the reviews are fantastic. The groom tells me that everyone stopped eating and paid attention when we danced, which makes me happy.

We eat and there’s dancing. The father of the bride gets roaringly drunk and starts feeding people shots of whiskey—including me, three times, the mother of the bride protecting me.

The party winds down around 9pm and an Uncle – I can’t remember if he’s the same or not – sends us back to the hotel. Dara decides to leave early so I give him the share of the generous gift Leak slipped me and send him on his way. Tomorrow the family wants to take me around Battambang, so I have to change my bus ticket in the morning to leave in the afternoon instead of the morning.

It was a crazy day, but testament to the work I’ve put in to make this place – in all of its uncertainty, frustration, and beauty – a part of me, and me a part of it. Here I am, in Battambang, part of a wedding, a family, on the outside and inside, doing what I love, with a good friend by my side. I would say, that’s a win.