Lao Weddings and Funerals


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Asia » Laos » West » Luang Prabang
March 1st 2010
Published: March 1st 2010
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Last week my friend Tity invited me along to a wedding she was attending. She didn't personally know the couple being married but the groom was the brother of her co-worker and so her entire office was invited. Lao weddings, in my experience, are always a crazy affair.

In some ways a Lao wedding is quite similar to an American wedding, but in other ways it’s a completely different event. Similiar to American weddings, invitees arrive in their finest, which here means silk shirts and skirts in vibrant colors. The women may have their hair done and wear high heels, while the men wear button-up silk shirts, nice trousers and black dress shoes. Eating, drinking, dancing and chatting are the main activities. Many people drink to intoxication. There is always music, a combination of live and pre-recorded. I think it's about here where the similiarities end.

Invitations to the wedding are delivered by hand, usually 1-4 days before the wedding is to take place. When guests arrive at the wedding, they are expected to bring the envelope their invite came in, re-stuffed with money, as well as the original invite. This envelope is slipped in to the slot at the top of one of two pinata-like creations, one for the groom’s friends and family, one for the bride’s. These pinatas sit right at the entrance to the wedding, and I think if anyone dared to show up to the wedding without their envelope, they might be turned away. It is somewhat of a competition as to which side of the marriage has more generous and caring friends and family. As guests must include the original invite with their monetary gift, the amount given is always public knowledge. Sometimes these amounts are even read out at the wedding. Money is the only acceptable present. 50-100,000 kip, about $6-$12, is considered an appropriate sum.

At big weddings, such as this one, the bride, groom, and thirty immediate family members form a receiving line stretching from the arched entrance. These people must stand, their hands clasped at their chests in a respectful wai, as each and every guest arrives. And guests do not arrive promptly. At this wedding, about five-hundred guests arrived, trickling in slowly over the course of two hours. Family members in the receiving line are recruited to offer incoming guests a welcoming shot of Johnny Walker or homemade
Wedding AttireWedding AttireWedding Attire

My new silk sinh but alas my silk shirt was not ready in time
lao-lao. There are two shot glasses, reused over and over again, for all five-hundred incoming guests. Sharing glasses is very lao-style.

Upon arriving at the party, guests have the option of sitting at any of the two hundred tables spread out over the dirt wedding grounds. There are no assigned seats. At smaller weddings, the food may be served as the guests arrive. But at such a large wedding as this one, each table is pre-dressed with saran-wrapped plates of food, as well as a bucket of ice, beers and water. Staff is employed to deliver beer, and ice, as beer is always drank with ice. Drinks are not ordered, but rather delivered and forced upon guests. There is no option whether to drink beer. Each guest’s glass is filled, and re-filled, by other guests anytime it dips below the top.

Toasting occurs every few minutes, with no specific toasting recipient named. The idea is that everyone drink together, celebrating communally, and everyone gets drunk together. The family, as well as important people in the village, walk around greeting guests seated at their different tables. Guests are expected to fill a glass with beer and ice, offer it to the important arrival, and toast with that person, generally drinking an entire glass of beer. The visiting people often carry around a bottle of Johnny Walker and a small shot glass, forcing shots upon guests seated at the tables. Refusing beer or whiskey is generally not an option. Believe me, I've tried. I recommend not attending a Lao wedding unless you are physically healthy enough to consume an obscene amount of alcohol.

The menu at this wedding was fresh tamarinds, steamed vegetables, steamed rice, grilled buffalo and a sweet pork curry. As it had been a hot day, in the nineties, and someone had had to prepare all this food, and arrange it upon 250 tables, the food had likely been out for hours. Everybody immediately got a “jep tong”, or stomachache, after eating, but still continued to nibble, as we needed something to soak up all that beer.

Loud, loud tinny Lao music was played, at times from recordings and at times from a live Lao bands. There is no such thing as music played at a reasonable sound level at a Lao wedding. If the music is not loud, it's not a wedding. The playing of the music one hundred decibles above a comfortable level is key to the enjoyment of the guests. (From what I've come to understand, I could be wrong.)

The Lamvong, the traditional Lao dance, engaging graceful hand movements and slow foot shuffling, rotating in a circle, facing one partner, is enjoyed. Men ask women to dance, but I've found its a key principle of the Lamvong that one must not look at their partner while dancing and especially not appear as though they are having fun.

People get increasingly drunk as the wedding continues, something shared with American weddings. No cocktails are proferred, unless you count shots of Johnny Walker. Although many weddings host up to five hundred people, costing up to $10,000 USD, Lao friends have told me that the family does not necessarily know all these people. The more guests at a wedding, the more importance and respect afforded to the family. It brings a family great pride to be able to host such a large party, even though it often puts them in to great, great debt, as $10,000 USD is a gigantic sum to most Lao. Although if a family can invite enough guests, they can hope to make back a decent portion of their expenses. (Upon receiving her fourth wedding invitation of the week, a Lao friend of mine exclaimed, "I don't even know this woman! She's just trying to make money from me!" Invitees are still expected to return the envelope with some money even if they choose not to attend the wedding.)

If you would like to stop drinking, you can’t. Perhaps you can do so by pretending to sip, once you lift your glass, but actually, drinking water or not drinking at all, is really not acceptable. After four hours of drinking and toasting, drinking and toasting, I really didn't want to drink anymore. But every time I tried to stop, or sit out a toast, I was chastised by all around. They also all brought up the fact that I wasn't working the next day, and they were, (as it was a Sunday night wedding). I tried to explain that just because I wasn't working I didn't necessarily want to drink until I passed out. Not an acceptable excuse. These people are serious, serious partiers.

Another big difference between Lao and American weddings is that there is either a very short, easily overlooked ceremony at Lao weddings, or no ceremony at all. People just come together to party. The marriage papers have already been signed. There is no special tradition for the actual marriage. At this wedding there was no ceremony. At another wedding I attended two years ago, there was a four-minute ceremony, but the music continued playing, people continued talking and the voice of the elder conducting the marriage with a microphone could not be heard over the din.

At this wedding there were two bathroom stalls for the five hundred guests. Inside these stalls there was one dim light bulb, a tap dispensing cold water and no form of soap or towel. Also one of the stalls was flooded. This is a common bathroom situation throughout most of Lao. But these people had spent so much money on this big, nice wedding. And everyone was dressed in beautiful, expensive clothing. Yet they had to use dirty bathrooms, and couldn’t wash their hands. And Lao people are really very, very clean, bathing always once or twice a day, despite most not having access to tap or hot water. But when it comes to hand washing, I don’t think there is much of a belief in that thus far.

I met the bride, a very young woman who sells snacks in front of the museum, when she came by our table, offering shots. She had been performing as host for hours and was beyond exhausted. She asked me if I had come alone, which I found funny, as it made me realize how little she probably had to do with the invite process. Around midnight, almost all of the guests had departed. Sadly, drunk driving has barely been invented here. What I mean by that is, only very recently are some people starting to say, "Hmm, maybe drinking is impairing to driving. Maybe we shouldn't do it anymore." But at this wedding, almost everybody drank to extreme and then hopped on their motorbike to head home. I didn't see anybody walking or asking for a ride or staying in a nearby hotel.

On a sad note, about ten days ago, an old man in my neighborhood died. For ten days and ten nights, his body was never alone. By tradition, the deceased's family prepare food and drinks for all the friends to come pay their respects. People with less money will often have a one day funeral. But this family has a lot of money, and he had seven children, who all had made their way back home, from all over the country, to say goodbye. So the family set up a huge outdoor kitchen, and tables and chairs blocking the street. In the daytime, people trickled in slowly, sitting, chatting and eating. People stayed for hours. At nighttime, many more people came, and every night, for the last ten nights, the funeral sounded like a loud, boisterous party, right in our backyard, lasting the entire night.

Many of the guests at the guesthouse where I stay complained, as they couldn't sleep, the night festivities were so loud. Wisely, Linda, half of the couple who runs the guesthouse, responded that there was nothing she could do. If she went to tell the family to quiet down, she knew they would say to her, "Oh, you think you won't die too?" or "Oh, should we ask him to die a different time? Is this not a good time?" Of course she would not really ever go to tell them to quiet down, as they are her neighbors and friends and she knows how this Lao tradition works.

Shockingly, a friend of the deceased came to pay his respects, and while kneeling and bent over at his friend's coffin, head to the ground, praying, this man also died. He was an old man as well, and died of a heart attack, but had been perfectly healthy that same day. Nobody knew what to make of this. This man was taken to his home for his funeral shortly after.

Yesterday, the deceased was placed in to an ornately decorated white wooden coffin and everybody came to say their final farewell. Many monks and novices came to pray over his body. Then his coffin was carried precariously down from the second floor via a wide bamboo latticed ladder, made specifically for this purpose. Ten men carried it down and in to the bed of a white truck. Monks stood at the front of the bed and lit incense for the ride to the pyre. The truck started to drive, and the friends and family walked behind the truck, the entire two miles to the cremation grounds.

I did not attend the funeral, but what happens at funerals here is the coffin is placed upon a big raised pyre, in an open religious space used only for funerals. Many prayers and blessings are said by monks and novices, and many belongings are placed in and around the coffin. The coffin is then burnt in a large fire. Everybody watches until the burning is complete.

This funeral continued for two more days and nights, commencing in all night loud and joyful music last night. There were traditional instruments, one that looks like a xylophone, and another that is played like a flute but is made from bamboo and has multiple wind pipes. They also played guitar and harmonic and sang in a soothing style I had not heard before. I woke at 1, 3, 5 and 6, and each time the music was as loud and lovely as the last time. They really played through the whole night. This is their way of wishing the spirit away, off to its next life. If they show their sadness they believe that perhaps the man’s spirit will remain. But if they act happy and give a good show for the spirit to move on, the spirit will feel free to go and can continue on to the place it is meant to be now.








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