Love and marriage, Khmer-style

Weddings are great, aren’t they? As we head into February it’s marriage month here in Cambodia, and we’re truly mired in matrimonial merriment.

An ordinary road the night before becomes a wedding venue the next morning, courtesy of colourful tents and plastic chairs.

And if you don’t spot the change, you’ll certainly hear it. The noise (music?) is seriously loud, with even the most modest reception requiring concert quantities of speaker stacks. The importance of your nuptials is clearly directly related to your decibel count. Sadly it’s also inversely proportionate to the value you place on the future aural health of your guests, not to mention the present mental health of your neighbours.

I confess that I haven’t yet learned to appreciate the aesthetic qualities of either the repetitively plinky plonky pre-dawn wake-up or the unrelenting late-night thudding bass. And yes, the noise is mornings, nights, all and any time: if this isn’t quite the romanticised account of wedding bliss you expected (from me?!) – in fact on re-reading I accept it’s positively grumpy – then please remember I was forced to start celebrating at precisely 4.30 this morning. And at 4.30am yesterday.

It’s not even limited to weekends – half the staff at work disappeared even earlier than usual last Wednesday, and it transpired they had a more important appointment at a ceremony across the village. A colleague explained that couples often take advice from fortune-tellers on which day is most lucky, and it seems the stars have little respect for hospital timetables. Interestingly, I’m told that most Cambodian weddings are arranged, which keeps astronomers busy and I guess saves on internet dating subscriptions.

Much as I’d like to, there’s no way I can beat (or avoid) weddings here, so I’ve succumbed on a couple of occasions and joined in. And I have to confess, whilst not exactly fun, weddings are certainly interesting places to observe aspects of the country’s culture.

For example, these celebrations of joining men and women are actually where I’ve observed most acutely the palpable separation been men and women in Cambodian society. Tables are uniformly single-sex, with little or no interaction between men and women. My most recent experience was therefore sitting with a bunch of guys drinking repeated rounds of icy lager, whilst those girls who weren’t fetching us the beers were sat at the other side of the room looking pretty, giggling and sometimes giggling prettily.

Similarly, whilst the girls / women looked amazing in silky costumes, immaculate make-up and dressy shoes, the boys / men looked basically like we always do, lounging in creased open-neck shirts and beige pants. An exception to this was the groom – he looked immaculate, managed to keep a fixed grin for a whole weekend, and I understand endured 4 changes of costume – though his blushing bride probably had twice as many.

Apparently the full celebrations of Khmer weddings can be extraordinarily elaborate, stretching from a morning exchange of food and presents at the groom’s home, to a procession to the bride’s home for ceremonies of tea-drinking, hair-cutting, foot-washing, and vow-exchanging – not to forget being ritually bound by silken cords. Maybe there’s something to be said for this after all.

Sadly I haven’t seen any of the above yet - apart from walking a gauntlet of bowing family on entry and a short stage presentation, my whole time at weddings has been spent eating and drinking. The provisions have always been plentiful, and I got away with chewing salad, nuts and bread, avoiding the Thmar Pouk speciality of deep-fried baby frogs.

I thought I was on safer ground with the drinks - copious quantities of ice with some lager mixed in. However, I was clearly remiss when drinking without first clinking glasses, and equally unimpressive when repeatedly failing to empty the contents at once (I tried to pretend I didn’t really understand, but unfortunately there’s a fairly clear and universal sign-language for ‘down it in one’).

With all the music, I had hopes of a bit of a boogie, but there was little in the way of dancing – at one wedding we did get to the front for some slow, formal waltz-type shuffling – the guys with other Khmer blokes I should add - and at the other some daring boys stood up from their tables and engaged in some rhythmic swaying. I figured this was not the place to show off my Flashdance routine.

And then you can go home. But not so fast! These weddings don’t pay for themselves you know. You’re not expected to bring a present, but you are provided with a handy envelope in which to put a compulsory voluntary contribution before you leave – the going rate at the moment is a whacking $10. Paid for the privilege? Ok, you can go home now, and pray to the stars for a wedding-free night’s sleep.

A romantic p.s. – I’ll try to redress the balance of the accompanying photos by including one of me and my new special friend, the lovely Katja who is a volunteer nurse in Stung Treng, handily situated nowhere near Thmar Pouk – happy days!