Madeline’s wedding – part 3a – 21st morning @ Sam’s

A wedding is like a movie. You have the cast
Lead Actor – Vincent Hiew
Lead Actress – Madeline Ham
Supporting cast Janet Low (Maid of honor)
Valerie (chee mui)
Ruby (chee mui)
Ee Ping (chee mui)
Rebecca (chee mui)
Carmen (chee mui)
Daphne (chee mui)
Shin (chee mui)
Yee Ling (chee mui)
Cindy (chee mui)
Ivy (chee mui)
Jennifer (chee mui)
Martina (chee mui)
Wee Tee (chee mui)
Celia (chee mui)
Tracy (chee mui)
Angie (chee mui)
Irene (chee mui)

(not all the chee muis are shown here - or I run out of chee muis to show on the other parts of my blog!!)
A bunch of guys from the bridegroom side (heng dai)
Special guest stars Pak Leung and family
The immediate Hiew family
Cameo roles Madeline’s father
Relatives on both sides (the aunts and uncles and cousins from near and far)
Friends on both sides
Avilleen Yeoh (ED of Warisan TC holdings)

Well, you get the idea. And for the heng dais trying to figure out who is who amongst the chee muis, good luck to you!! Want to know them ah, must open mouth during the yam cha sessions and also during dinner. Otherwise – opportunities have been lost!! Kekeke!!

So the morning started with collection of breakfast for the chee muis at my house. Went to the market with my wife and when we got back, the roast pig was already delivered and the delivery man was happily hacking away at it. Big pig!!

Only RM760. Given today’s price on pork, this can be considered as reasonable.

Almost everybody in the house woke up before 6am to get prepared for the day. Maybe it was the excitement of what was expected, or maybe my beds and mattresses were not comfortable enough, but almost everyone had only a couple hours of shut eyes.

Preparations for the morning includes medicating the stomach (yee toh aka breakfast), going over the ragging list (as in ragging the bridegroom and his entourage) and deciding the order of events.

At almost 9am, the sound of horns blaring in the distance heralded the arrival of the bridegroom and his entourage. The bride was still happily tucking away into mee hoon downstairs and had to be rushed upstairs to get her into her dress and put on the final touches.

The most important thing to be done before the groom arrived was the veiling of the bride. This is traditionally done by the bride's dad, but he was nowhere to be found. So my mum had the honor of veiling Madeline (and rightly deserve to do it as she has been almost like a surrogate mother to Madeline). Even Madeline's boss, Avilleen was in the room to witness the veiling.Let the show begin!!!

Act 1 scene 1 – the first hurdles
First hurdle the bridegroom had to overcome was getting out of the car. He cannot just open the door and walk out. He had to wait for a young family member, normally the bride’s youngest brother, in this case, my son Alex, to open the door for him. And he has to bribe Alex before Alex will open the door. No ang pow (red packet) no door opening!! Well, Alex got his Ang Pow and the groom strutted into the house compound.

All the doors leading into the house was then closed. The front grill was locked, but not the sliding glass door. So negotiations between the groom’s party and the chee muis inside the house could commence. I had a side door into the living room where entrance was controlled for late comers and non affiliated parties (neither the heng dai or chee muis).

In order to allow the groom into the house, he and his heng dais had to perform some tasks. In no particular order
- Read out aloud a pledge of his undying love and sign it. Reading it wrong (like saying, I will give her SOME of my money, instead of ALL of my money) meant he had to start all over again.
- Have one of the heng dai roll a hard boiled egg from one trouser leg, up the leg (from inside) and then down the other leg. Obviously ticklish in certain sensitive parts!! And then the groom had to peel off the shell of the egg and the heng dai had to eat and swallow the egg. 3 eggs were available for this task for 3 heng dai to complete. One heng dai managed to break the egg into 2 before it emerged out the other trouser leg!!
- Eat sandwiches which were spiced with fermented soya bean paste (foo yee). Very salty and sourish!!
- Each heng dai had to open a capsule of dried herbs onto their tongues and then swallow the mess. The herb is good for cooling the body but is really really BITTER!!
- Last but not least, they had to ‘bribe’ the chee muis with ang pows to open the gate.

As time was of the essence, after a little haggling, the gates were opened. You think that’s it?? No! no! The door to the bride’s room was locked from inside! The groom and heng dais really had to jump through hoops in order to get to the bride. Eventually, they got through all the trials and tribulations laid out by the chee muis and peace reigned in the house – sort of!

Next were the yam cha (tea ceremony) sessions. This session is to show respect to the elders of the bride side as well as an opportunity for the young ones to get a red packet. First up was Madeline’s dad, followed by the uncles and aunties of the Tham clan. Then the senior cousins (like yours truly) and the married ones. All of us had to give the newly weds an ang pow or gift (typically gold necklaces, bracelets, etc). Then it was the turn of the unmarried ones and finally the young ones – who received ang pows after wishing the newly weds.

With that, we carried the roast pig (only head and tail with mid section wrapped in red paper) to my other car, tied 2 stalks of sugar cane onto the same car and lead the whole group – chee muis and heng dais, to Vincent’s house for the next act.

Wedding dinner of Vincent and Madeline - part 2 - the nite of 20th

Both the bride and bridegroom had separate dinner gatherings at their respective homes on the 20th June. Vincent's dinner was for his brothers and other friends of the bridegroom and Madeline's dinner was for her sisters (cheemuis) and her friends. For friends of both of them, they were welcomed to attend either or both.

The day started with the contractor who was supposed to setup the canopies for the dinner. My wife and I went to market to reserve Nyonya kuehs and Tom Yam mee hoon for Saturday morning. Just as we arrived back from the market, the canopy man was there. Took us half and hour of trying to figure out how to erect 2 pieces of 20 feet by 20 feet canopies inside the house compound or just outside of it. In the end, I told the canopy man to just unload the table and chairs for the party and forget about the canopy. We would have ended up erecting the canopy on the public road in front of the house (normal in Malaysia) but the road in front of my house slopes!!

I also spent the morning washing and waxing my Camry. Just before Freddy turned up to dress up the car, a bird with possible diarrhea left specs of something all over the top. Luckily my wax could remove it.

As evening approached, the caterer came in to setup the food. I had to setup the tables! Hmphh! And by 6pm, the first guests started arriving. Despite the night being on a working day, many of the guests had time to go home, freshen up and then showed up for the dinner. I also spent the night driving to Damansara Jaya to fetch my brother's mum and also leading a Singapore cousin to the Palace of Golden Horses and then back so that they know how to get back and forth on their own. Madeline's Singapore based cousin then took Madeline's sister, Yin San, to Puduraya to fetch another couple of relatives who were arriving by bus from Lenggong. Unfortunately, they ended up in the Hockey stadium. A flurry of phone calls had to be made to get Yin San to the hockey stadium. Then Vincent called up to say there was durians available. Some aunts from Simpang Renggam visited with some durians. I rushed over to his house, grabbed 6 durians and shared that with whoever was still happily eating away. The cheemuis also consumed one big bottle of Choya. looks like I need to stock up on Choya whenever this group turns up!

As I was away from the house often to run errands, it has been good to have the cheemuis helping out. The playful cheemuis above helped in getting organized. When the day was over, 4 of the cheemuis stayed over. They were needed to help get everything ready in the early morning for the arrival of the bridegroom, the ragging and the tea ceremony.

I put 3 of them in my mum's room. My mum and the maid of honor were placed in my room, with Alex and my wife. Madeline and I ended up being the living room guardians. And Yin San, who cannot sleep in an air conditioned room or one with the fan blowing at her, opted for the upstairs living room where I had a convertible sofa/bed. That's the first time in a long time that I had so many people staying over. It would have been more, but I managed to get 4 rooms in Palace of Golden Horses to house 2 families - one from Singapore/Lenggong and the other from Malacca.

Once everyone had their bath, the cheemuis who remained started doing up their nails - varnishing and polishing. Janet helped to get Madeline's nails trimmed and polish. And the last thing for the night before Madeline called it a night - a sort of a mask.

Wedding dinner of Vincent and Madeline part 1

FINALLY!! After the marriage registration in Feb 2007, the wedding dinner of Madeline and Vincent was ON!!! Checklist to get this wedding dinner to go ahead
- New Camry from cousin available - Checked!
- Deliberation on invitation list - Checked!
- A reasonable place to hold the dinner - Checked!
- Financial affordability in worst case scenario - Checked!
And with that planning for the dinner had started earlier in the year.

I personally think that things happen in life for a reason. Though sometimes the reasons boggles the mind. Sometimes, the reasons can be illogical. In Madeline's' case, the one thing that I think was good for her was that she left Agilent sometime back and worked in Shiseido. When I look at what her wedding dinner planning and event could have been if she had remained in Agilent, I do not see as much of a success as she had on 20th and 21st June.

She had a whole bunch of ladies from Shiseido, both past and present to help her in her preparations. The maid of honor, Janet was like a mother hen clucking around her charge, making decisions for her, waiting on her hand and foot. I swear I never knew the Maid of honor had to do so much. "Janet - I want to drink Ribena!!" " Janet - do this" "Janet - do that!!" And Janet defines that parameters that the Chee Muis (literally means sisters) should operate within in ragging the bridegroom and his brothers. Janet, I take my hat off to you and if I did not tell you on the dinner night, I'll say it here - thank you and you look gorgeous during the dinner on 21st.

Before the other Chee Muis kill me for not mentioning them - ladies - hold your horses!!! I will be writing this up in multiple parts. I need to get some of the other photos from the official photographer, Sam (not me), before I can write about the rest of you. The last time I wrote about the chee mui planning dinner, at least 2 of you did not like your photos that I used. So hopefully Sam has nicer ones that I can use in my blog.

To end this short update, I know many of you were disappointed this morning (22nd). First prize on Magnum 4D was 2997 and not the number of the wedding car!! There is always tomorrow!.

Aunt Fong Ang and husband opens their second laundrette

19th June marks the opening of the second laundrette for my 8th Aunt and her husband. Initially, I had planned to take leave for that day to bring some cousins over for the opening ceremony. But I had to call up to decline the invitation as I also had a meeting in the office in the early afternoon of the same day. My brother Kit, had said he would take time off to go, if I fetched him. So it ended up , none of us were able to accept the invite.

As luck would have it, the office meeting on the 19th was to discuss on a community affair planned for 17th July, for which I had volunteered to be the MC. Coincidentally, I had to be in Germany during that week in July. So I opted out of that office meeting. I also took leave on 19th as Madeline was using my house as base of operations for her wedding party and tea ceremony. There were the canopy contractors coming in to setup the canopies. Madeline had to pick up her bridal gown, etc, etc., etc..

In the end , Madeline and I managed to squeeze out some time to attend the opening ceremony of the laundrette. It is located inside the Platinum Lake condominiums in Taman Danau Kota in Setapak. The opening of the launderette was blessed by their church's Pastor and attended by many of her church members.

Both my Aunt and husband are MBA graduates since more than a decade ago. Somewhere along the way, her husband decided to try his hand at his own business instead of working for corporate and this business came about. My aunt is some kind of HR director in AP for the United Nations. Still have not managed to ask her the exact details.

Apprpriately enough, the door gifts were hangers. Expandable hangers!.

Port Dickson for a holiday? - other attractions

My third update on the vacation in Port Dickson.

So besides swimming (or floating in some cases) in the sea and lazing on the beach, what else can one do in PD? Of course there is the requisite banana boat rides for the young ones. When I looked through my photo archives, I realized that on every visit, without fail, we would end up in the Ostrich farm. You pay the entrance fees, walk by the goats enclosure. Feed the goats grass and any other vegetation you can grab hold of. Disturb the pea brained ostriches. Watch the monkey demonstrate how to pluck coconuts and then have photo op with him (this particular one is named Abu). Then stand on supposedly ostrich eggs (but on closer examination, more likely to be 2 round ostrich egg like stones). Ride the ostrich. Ride the ponies. And finally end up in the cafeteria for a drink and maybe ostrich satay. The Ostrich farm has a somewhat self sustaining farm, with star fruit (carambola) trees abundantly populating the premises.

Next, there was the PD mini zoo. This was the first time we were going there. More of the same - ostriches, monkeys, peacocks/peahens, ponies, donkeys and horses. They also grew many star fruit trees on their premises. What i really liked during my visit was the numerous DURIAN trees. With fruits clustered on every branch. Unfortunately the durians will not be ready for another few weeks.
So near yet so far! Sigh!