The Ceremony/Wedding Party

Well, this wasn’t really a wedding, but the celebration of a marraige between Chen-yu and Sven.  The wedding was last year and I heard that I missed a good one!!!  So anyways, Chen-yu’s mother really wanted to have some sort of celebration in Taiwan to show her family, relatives, and friends that her daughter was really married to a foreigner and that she wasn’t making things up.  The proof is in the pudding, we all say in America, so Chen-yu’s mother insisted on the two of them, his parents, plus both of Chen-yu’s parents (who live in Poland right now), fly all the way to Taiwan to show those farmers from the south that the rumors were true, and yes, someone did finally marry their daughter.  (Just kidding Chen-yu, if you read this)  So,myself, now included in the bunch,show up in Lugang where the grand parents on the mothers side live.  We get there by train and are picked up at the train station by Chen-yu’s  father, brother, and uncle.  Two cars.  We drive for about 1 hour to the first stop, the city hall where one of Chen-yu’s uncles is having an art show.  This whole experience is going to be very hard to explain, so bear with the wanderings and meanderings of my mind.  I hope that you can follow.  So from my perspective, this is what is was like.The Anderson family and I enter through the big doors where we instantly become the art, not the paintings, everyone is starring, taking pictures, wanting us to get together for a picture, and I am worried that because there are two of us, (white, German looking, guys) that people might get confused on who the groom is, so I make it a point to stay a little in the back, trying not to draw too much attention to myself.  But still the confusion exists, I hear Chen-yu telling yet another person who has asked her who I am, that I am Sven’s friend and that I lived with his family in Germany when I was younger.  I just smile and wave at them or get my picture taken and then that is it, until the next inquisitive person comes along.  So, yeah, I heard that story countless times over the next few days,,,,,,oooopppsss.  At this point, I now start to understand why Chen-yu’s parents weren’t very excited that I came.  Oh well, people eventually figured it out, but still a little awkward. 

The next stop is lunch where the 91 year old grand father who is always smiling and clasping his hands together fed the lot of us.  Not just us, the family, but his whole family, about 40 of us.  Plate after plate of food kept on coming, one after the other.   King crab, shrimp, baked fish, soups, and the best was a whole plate of rooster balls and kidneys.  No joke, and yes, roosters do have balls, you just cannot see them.  But the Taiwanese have and we eatthem.  They sort of tasted like little german sausages that burst open when you bit into them.  They were actually quite good once I got passed the thought of eating a chickens balls. 

The grandmother with altzheimers wasn’t as friendly but the grandfather over compensated for us all with lots of food and drink.  So much so that Mike and I who were sitting next to each other laughed about how full we were and also how drunk we were getting.  Full is an understatement to the actual extent that my stomach was being stretched to.  But like a true soldier, I kept up the pace til the end.  Then we were taken to our hotel where we were to rest a bit until we were beckoned again.  It was about 3 o’clock in the afternoon.  We all slept…….until 6, then we were all hustled off to the next feast, this time is was the auntie who invited us.  The location, an all you can eat steak house.  None of us were even slightly hungry yet.  We all ordered a full plate of food and I believe that we all ate all of our food.  Gluttony is such a nice feeling.  The feeling that you are so full that breathing takes effort and you break out in a sweat just sitting at the table. 

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