Shanghai Girl (28 page)

I close my eyes and penetrate, vicariously uniting with Sha-fei for the first and last time. Lotus groans louder, her small feet kick my back like padded hammers beating a copper gong.

Then she locks them together behind me and her small body begins to rock back. Echoes fall from the ceilings.

A few minutes later, I help myself up from the floor by leaning on the desk. I put an open palm on the display case, leaving on it my handprint fresh from pawing her juices, paste and all. “The case is yours,” I murmur, reaching for my clothes. “You know the deal. Good luck and have a good life.”

Lotus’s wedding invitation arrives within days, gold dragon and phoenix motif on heavy, red stock, Chinese on one side, English on the other:

Mr. & Mrs. Wah Foo Siew

and

Mr. & Mrs. Wing Wong Siew

request the honor of your presence

at the marriage of their children

Dong Kee

and

Lotus Lei-Tin

on Saturday, the 9th of November

Nineteen Hundred and Eighty-Five

-------- * * * --------

Banquet will be held at 6:30 p.m.

"Joy Luck Wedding" 12-course

served at 8:30 p.m.

at Double Happiness Pavilion

333 Grand Street, New York City

I’m invited with a guest. I only wish that I could take Sha-fei, but I realize that asking would be futile.

17 Sha-Fei Hong: Holy Matrimony

“
Please be my date for this wedding, Sha-fei,” Lu Long implores on the phone. “My buddy insists that I bring you.”

“Whose wedding is it?”

“Remember the waiter I introduced to you when we had lunch at Wok Egg Roll? Okay, it’s his second cousin’s wedding. His cousin was born and raised in Chinatown, so the wedding should be really interesting. There’ll be plenty of free food and entertainment. My buddy said to make sure I bring my girlfriend.”

“Who’s your girlfriend?” I ask in an innocent way.

“Come on, Sha-fei. Haven’t you tortured me long enough?”

I switch to English and joke in reference to our earlier experiences in China, “You mean ‘We practice oral drills, hard on and up everyday’?” I break out laughing before Lu Long realizes whom I was imitating.

“Oh, heavens! You still remember my silly English in our Shanghai days?”

“I have to admit your English has improved a lot since then.”

“So you will come?”

“I think so. I haven’t been to a wedding in America yet. A Chinatown wedding can probably reveal a lot more things I can’t find in my research."

"That's wonderful! Thank you for giving me face, Sha-fei! I haven’t loved you all this time in vain!”

I laugh loudly. “Silly you. See how excited you become. It’s just going to a social event together. What shall we bring?”

“Nothing. We are not really official, you see. We won’t get an invitation and we can only sit at a corner table. But that’s okay.”

“Are you really that interested in going? It sounds like we’re taking advantage of a wedding party to eat free.”

“My buddy assured me it’s all right. We’re not the only people he invited. And his other relatives also asked some of their friends. They all belong to the Siew Clan Association. My buddy and his family got out of rural Guangdong several years ago all because of the Clan’s sponsorship. The Cantonese have very different customs from us Shanghai people, plus they have the Western influence here. I’m sure the wedding will be fun. Please don’t change your mind.”

I have read about the Siew Clan Association. This will indeed be a good opportunity to take a first hand look at the Clan. “Okay, I’ll go as your date, Lu Long.”

The wedding banquet takes up the entire first floor of The Double Happiness Pavilion. A long table covered with red fortune paper stands at the entrance for guests to leave their presents and sign their names with Chinese ink and brush. There is a separate book for the English-writing, complete with two Parker fountain pens. Despite Lu Long’s saying it’s unnecessary, I have a small gift in my own name for Lotus, once I realized she would be the bride. It is a ceramic music box with a pair of long neck swans locked in a kiss. In China, such symbolism would more likely be a pair of loving Mandarin ducks, but I couldn’t find that in the stores here. On an accompanying Hallmark note, I wrote: “To Lotus – Congratulations! Wishing you a successful and fruitful marriage. Best, Sha-fei Hong and Lu Long“

When I show the present to Lu Long, he is delighted to see me signing our names together as a couple.

Forty tables are divided into two camps: thirty-five for the Chinese-speaking and five for the English-speaking. Lu Long and I are seated in the former camp in a table near the entrance to the restroom, far away from the center stage. Two red columns with golden dragon and phoenix motif on them separate the two camps. Those seated at the five tables are mostly Caucasian guests the newlyweds know through their social network outside of Chinatown.

The wedding cake is served before the meal. For some reason, a red-haired American woman leaving the ladies room stops in front of me and asks with a big smile, "Excuse me, can you speak English?"

"Why, yes."

"Oh, good. You look intelligent so I asked you. Can you tell me why the cake is served now?"

"I'm sorry I don’t have an answer for you."

"No? I thought it's a Chinese tradition."

"Actually, serving cakes at weddings is a custom that originated in the West."

"Is that right?" She raises her eyebrows. “You don’t happen to know the recipe for it, do you?”

“No.”

The woman explains, “You see, I was wondering what type of oil they put in it. I can’t eat anything that is high in fat.”

Looking at her shape quickly, I nod in agreement.

“Well, I don’t think I’m going to touch that cake. Thank you very much. You people are just the sweetest.” She turns and negotiates herself back to her seat in the other camp.

Lu Long and I exchange a quick look at each other, shake our heads, and laugh.

The next moment, three white-shirted waiters in black bow ties and red vests thread through the crowd toward the center stage, carrying a round table top and yelling "Make way! Watch out! Table coming!" I am surprised to see a contingent of elderly Chinese wedding party members standing on stage, waiting to be seated.

"What are they doing?" I ask the people at our table.

A Chinatown peddler-looking young man replies, “They’re setting up the table for the Clan elders and family connections. They sit higher up to represent status. Look, there’s the Chairman."

"Mr. Siew will sit there?"

So there’s the man. I know through my research that Chairman Siew of the Clan Association is a big shot around here. I’m pretty sure he’s the “Chairman” I heard mentioned in Dr. Hom’s office.

I look up to the stage as the table is being installed, a lazy Susan added, and the dignitaries seated. As the people on-stage applaud loudly, a goateed elderly man in a two-piece blue satin Mandarin jacket and a matching “melon rind hat” -
Gua Pi Mao
approaches the microphone and greets the guests with his palms together. "
Ko Wai Tzin Yao
," -- Each and every relative and friend, begins the Chairman as he delivers his speech in Cantonese.

Mr. Siew thanks everybody for coming and for wishing prosperity for the Siew Clan - "More sons, more grandsons," he says. I chuckle to myself, to think what a challenge Lotus has to face.

There is no English or Mandarin translation of the speech. Most guests in our section seem to be waiting for the food. After the speech, the old man presents Lotus with a set of 24K gold bracelets depicting a dragon and a phoenix respectively. The dragon represents the groom, the phoenix, the bride.

Wearing an embroidered, two-piece red traditional Chinese satin dress, head lowered and covered with red satin veil, Lotus receives the bracelets after kowtowing three times. Her husband looks on with his head bent, showing respect to the Clan elders. This is the first time the newly-weds is seen at the banquet. They are escorted to the ancestral altar placed under the red Double Happiness brocade banner and kneel down.

The ceremony administrator calls out loudly,

“First, kowtow to Heaven!”

“Second, kowtow to Earth!”

“Third, to the ancestors!”

“Lastly, to each other!”

The newlyweds follow all the instructions dutifully. On stage, Lotus appears even tinier, her meekness projecting quite the opposite image I remembered from my encounters with her. The groom, Lu Long’s buddy’s Chinatown-born cousin, has permed his hair and wears a tuxedo, creating an interesting contrast to his wife. I jot down in my notebook the line “East meets West among the East in the West.”

After the primary honoring ceremony, the bride and groom circle around the table to kowtow and receive presents. Three Chinese girls, all Lotus's bridesmaids, follow her with tall plastic take-out food containers to collect the gold necklaces, bracelets, and rings presented by the relatives. Apparently, after putting on many gold chains, Lotus has given up and resorted to having her bridesmaids collect the jewelry for her. "She looks like Mr. T," a young teenage boy at our table comments in English. His mother hits his mouth with chopsticks and scolds in Cantonese, “Shut your mouth, little one!”

The kowtowing round is over, Lotus disappears from the stage to change costumes. When she returns in a high neck, form-fitting red brocade
Qi Pao
dress, the music begins.

The Master of Ceremonies no doubt loves contemporary music. Clad in a body hugging, Michael Jackson-style sequined outfit, the pony-tailed Chinese youth blasts waves of "Y-M-C-A" into his mike, ignoring glares of disapproval from the core table and much of the Chinese section.

"Are we having fun yet?" he booms into the mike in English. "I can't hear you!" Pointing the mike down towards the crowd on the dance floor, he demands at the top of his lungs: "
Xiang Dian! Zai Xiang Dian!
" – Louder! Louder still! "I can't hear you!"

An amused and excited Lu Long cups his hand to my ear and says, “Don’t you think this kind of wedding is fun?”

I say with a smile, “More like culture shock to me."

“You think we can try to shock ourselves like this one day?”

I push him in a make-believe hit and reply, “I shouldn’t have come with you, you fool!”

Lu Long smiles and leans over. “But why are you blushing all of a sudden?”

Then, we hear the melody of Nat King Cole's "Unforgettable." Lu Long takes a sip of Jasmine tea and stands up. "Will you dance with me, Miss Hong?"

In his earnest eyes, I see the same man whose bicycle I used to ride as a drill time for English. "Yes, I will!"

A young and beautiful couple, we sashay onto the dance floor, joining the many who are already there.

My hand on his shoulder, his arm on my waist, we dance. He gently pushes my head against his shoulder. I let it rest there and close my eyes. We dance and dance. Round and round. The scene from the movie “Bolonbascu.” One of the first non-Chinese movies I ever saw. A Romanian composer and his girlfriend waltzing. Swirling. I tilt my head and open my eyes. Lu Long is gazing at me, the luster of his eyes penetrating through his glasses like rays of sunshine. "Can I have a kiss?” he whispers.

And he kisses me on the mouth. Nobody seems to notice us. A tingling sensation surges around my eye sockets.

After the song ends, we leave the dance floor to return to our seats. And there it is, right in the middle of each table on the lazy Susan is a golden brown suckling pig. “The suckling pig is my favorite course,” says Lu Long’s buddy. “They always serve it at a wedding banquet because it symbolizes that the bride is still a virgin, like the little pig.” “Really?” I ask. “I have never heard of such a thing.” Lu Long seems a bit embarrassed by the discussion of virgins, so his buddy teases him again. “Why are you blushing, Lu Long?” Lu Long uses his chopsticks to point at the suckling pig and urges his buddy, “Why don’t you dig in and eat some of your favorite dish.” The young man eats a piece and continues, “Mmmm, this is good. The crispy skin simply melts in my mouth. You know what? The bride’s father owns this butcher shop in Chinatown, so he supplied all the suckling pigs for tonight. They must have handpicked all the pigs. They taste so good!” I did know that Lotus’ father is a butcher. Chewing on the pig and contemplating on the virginal symbolism, I somehow find it hard to swallow the notion that Lotus is still a virgin. I don’t know why I doubt that, but I just have the feeling that her father’s pigs are a mere symbol and nothing more.