A Tale of Two River Cruises

On Oliver and William's last day off school we decided to go on a river cruise on the Huang pu in Shanghai.  It is a great way to see both sides of the river.  We arrived an hour early for the boat and so did what has become a regular habit for us-we went for coffee!  It was glorious sitting in the sun watching the boats go by.

During the cruise it felt a little cooler due to the breeze but the views were fantastic and we all provided on board entertainment for the tourists! One couple paid more attention to William and Oliver than to the views from the boat.

 Jo and I were quite in demand for photos!

The previous day I (Sam) had experienced an altogether different boat trip experience when I attended my first Chinese Wedding.  One of my colleagues, James,  who had organized our dance at the Chinese New Year banquet was getting married and he invited all of his dance friends!!

Chinese weddings are slightly different to British ones, as they typically happen in 3 stages.  First of all the couple do the legal part of signing the marriage paper work, but this is often done about a year before they actually have their wedding ceremony and reception.  Part two is the wedding photographs, which as you will have seen in many of our previous blogs happen in any number of beautiful or random public places.  Finally they have the ceremony and reception with their family, friends and colleagues.

James invited me to join him for the whole day and accompany him and his best men in the wedding car to go and pick up his wife and bridesmaids, but as we had guests I opted to just meet him at the boat.  I arrived at the dock and after a chat with the ticket collectors, was allowed through and boarded the boat.  I was greeted by a life size photograph of the couple and was given a raffle ticket and was asked to sign a guest book.  I then made my way up to the top deck to meet the couple.  James introduced me to Alice and we had our photo taken

Once everyone had arrived the couple went below deck and after a little bit of waiting around suddenly some very loud and dramatic music started playing, which was the cue for the couple to make their way up and the ceremony began.  The ceremony was not dissimilar to a british civil ceremony, although instead of a registrar there was a compare talking over a microphone, in a TV host style, with various backing tracks to set the mood.

After the ceremony we all made our way below deck for the banquet.  I was on the Ford table and there were a couple of other tables with people from his current and previous companies and then some with family and friends.  The meal was a traditional Chinese wedding banquet so the dishes just kept on coming.

After the meal the speeches started, which is when it got interesting.  Firstly the groom got up to speak and this was followed by the bride’s brother-in-law; cue over-head projector and music video and karaoke.  Next the two best men were called to the front and instead of giving a speech the compare got them to have a race to see which one could stack cups.  This was followed by them having to dance along to Gangnam Style. 

Following this I discovered that our table was next up to perform!  The girls had prepared a song so we all had to stand up at the front and sing.  Once complete I went to sit back down, but it turned out we were also to have a competition, so the compare split us into two teams and we then had to stand in lines with a bread stick in our mouths and had to see which team could pass the most onion rings from one end to the other in a minute.  Our team won, so we each got some chocolates and Kleenex baby wipes (James now works for Kimberly-Clark!!).

We then returned to our tables and the the bride and groom went to talk to each table.  However the main focus of this was that the groom has to down a shot of Chinese rice wine (which is similar to vodka) with each table; when he got to our table it was then decided that he should do 2, one Red wine and one rice wine, and then finally an extra one with me, I assume as I was the only westerner!  In Chinese, instead of saying cheers, everyone shouts Gan Bei, which literally translated mean Dry Cup.

Finally the groom made one final speech, which mainly involved him crying and saying how lucky he was, the rice wine had clearly had an effect.