The Falang Wedding

This past weekend I attended my first Lao wedding…sort of.  Two of my good friends and coworkers are getting married in Australia in 3 months, and they know that most of their friends here won’t be able to attend, so they decided to have a wedding here as well.  With the help of some TAs from school, they had a fully Lao-style wedding.  Britain had the Royal Wedding, Vientiane had the Falang Wedding, and it was a truly anticipated event for most of us here.

The wedding was held at a big reception venue in town, and everyone close to the bride and groom came early for the ceremony, a traditional Lao baci.  Bacis are ceremonies held for all types of events here, from going away parties, to welcoming new children, to weddings.  The ceremony began with the groom entering the building (with his groomsman holding a palm umbrella over him) and passing through a series of friends who held chains out to stop him, only letting him pass once he had answered questions about his intentions. He then entered the baci room, where everyone else was kneeling around two elaborate bowls of offerings, which included bunches of marigolds, a dead chicken, sticky rice, and waver cookies.  The bride entered from the back and the two kneeled together while the ceremony (which none of us really understood) was performed–which involved throwing rice, feeding each other, holding on to baci strings, drinking Lao whiskey and generally kneeling until everyone’s legs were asleep.  At the end, all of the guests tied baci bracelets on the newly wed couple and wished them good luck.

Baci ceremony.

As a bridesmaid and “family member,” I stood with the bride and groom, and their other bridesmaid and groomsman greeting arrivals to the reception, by the large floral arrangements and traditional portraits.  Later in the evening, the couple danced their first lamvong, or Lao traditional dance, which mostly involves a lot of elaborate hand movements, but is strangely more difficult than it would appear.  The rest of us joined them on the dance floor, and the TAs attempted to teach the falang some Lao line dances, to only mild success.  The best part of the event, aside from getting to wear a Lao traditional outfit, with a sinh, silk shirt, and sash, for the first time, was that literally everyone I know in town was there.  All the PiAers, all the Lao and falang staff from school–the Vientiane cast of characters was all together, dancing into the night.

Now that the excitement of the Falang Wedding is over, bags are being packed, after wrapping up Term 2 this past week.  I’m on holiday for two weeks before Term 3 kicks off in mid-July, and my mom is here to visit in Asia for the first time!  There will be a short hiatus in blogging for the next few weeks, as I travel with her to Luang Prabang and then to Cambodia.  Look forward to the next chapters in my southeast Asia adventure in late July.