One Wedding, one mooncake festival and a funeral

It was a relatively busy weekend for our family and there were some fun things that happened. Starting with Melissa's aunt who passed away. It was totally ok since she was 80, sick and suffering for the last 2 months and quite hate-able. So there wasn't any sorrow though anyone dying is never a time for celebrations....normally. So I had to take my mom-in-law who came all the way from Kuantan to the funeral. For those of you who have not attended a Chinese funeral, the wake goes on for an odd number of days with 3 days being the minimum. So it can go on for 3,5,7, days...you get the picture.

So after work and dinner, we arrived around 9pm and were greeted by her cousins whom we almost never meet. In a Chinese family, the only time you see ALL of the family members is during a funeral. Not Chinese New Year, not birthdays, not weddings but at funerals.

So we sat somberly, as how Catholics are supposed to. Once a cousin of mine mentioned that her Catholic relatives were very quiet during a wedding, so it must be that all Catholics are somber. That's like saying Attila the Hun was a peace loving man, Genghis Khan loves to knit, Gandhi likes to stick sharp, hot metal objects through the rectum of poor peasants and Vlad the Impaler likes cranberry juice! Ok, so we don't impale or hang or burn people...usually, but one thing we Catholics aren't is somber. Especially those Chindian ones.

The next thing we knew at the funeral, the "somber" Catholic Chindian was recounting stories about Chindians, about teaching my wife how to cycle or how paranoid she can be and about the funny episodes that just happen around me. I was holding a mini stand-up comic show. Our table grew bigger with more people sitting around, louder and funnier. Best of, there were no alcohol involved!

The next day, we decided to have a Lantern walk around our park with my immediate and extended family seeing that it was the Mid-Autumn Festival or Mooncake Festival. We had a mini picnic with mooncake (though we almost didn't have mooncake during mooncake festival. Can you imagine the sacrilege??), dried pork, fizzie drinks and a lot of snacks. We hung around chatting, telling tales of others, teasing one of my cousins who insisted that we can attended any of our relatives' parties even though we aren't invited, just we because we are related. I am glad I like this cousin, so she can gate crash my parties anytime. I feel sorry for those who aren't close and may wonder, who is this tall, gangly and slightly scrawny girl coming to my party of which I didn't invite? Oh the stress!!! It lead to one us commenting that she may have been adopted. It was a cruel thing to say but if you were there, you'd understand.

So we lit candles, burned up some paper lanterns, kids walked around wondering what the fuss was all about, while we adults laughed, joked and had a good time. We always say these outings are for the kids, who actually just wanted to stay home with their cousins and play XBox and Wii. I headed to the funeral around 11pm again and the crowd was still waiting for me to continue my stories. So lantern walk was hilarious and funeral was good plus I built relationship with a cousin-in-law who lives in Beijing and got invited to stay at his house, anytime! Not bad for a somber Catholic.

The following day, a cousin got married. It was a simple wedding but I got to meet a lot of relatives whom I have not seen in ages as well. So it was time to bring out the show even though my family are general just fun people and didn't need my show. The highlight of the evening was when my Chindian brother, who took up the WHOLE stage (albeit it was a small stage but to take up the WHOLE stage??!!) belted 2 songs by Beyond. Which is a big deal since Beyond's songs are not easy to sing and they are in Cantonese and my brother can't read Chinese. So it's was all from memory.

He was great! One Indian man in the crowd immediately got up and cheered and clapped. He even joined in the singing. You know when you watch those Indian Bollywood movies and you see whole villages suddenly getting up and joining the hero in song and dance, and doing it all in unison? It's all true. We can't help it. It's an Indian thing. We see another Indian singing or dancing and that's our cue to jump in with our dancing shoes. It's in our genes....and also the Banggara can be done by anyone even with 2 left feet and the motor skills or a watermelon. If more alcohol was involved and we belted an Indian song, this guy would have just adopted us.

So it was a good weekend of fun though I was monetarily poorer for it, I connected with a lot of my family. At my funeral, there will be mooncake eating, crotch grabbing, lantern walking and Banggara dancing!!