Part-time jobs and weddings (a title that meant little over this post)

I would’ve very much be familiar with moments where my aunt would make a call on a gentle weekday evening, announcing – in her often-than-not tired tone – that there is a part-time job opportunity for me in the weekend helping out my uncle (her husband) in his excess amount of shooting assignments; and when such moments came in a sudden (but not entirely unpredictable) manner, I would go through with a very regular answer;

“I’ll have to make sure my dad hasn’t a thing for me to do in the weekends.”

I carry truth in saying that in 4 out of 10 weekends, my dad would have something specific for me to do. Another 5 would be things that come on the spur of the day, at the breakfast table, over a nice bowl of curry noodles and roasted pork. 1 rare weekend is all I have to peacefully indulge myself in the busy and (at best) uninterrupted art of lazing.

But this was a rare weekend; there wasn’t a thing for me to mow, or cut, or to take to a particular shop somewhere with grease and black smudge. And I said “yes” to my aunt, who sounded lazily delighted, and I have myself something to do in the weekend that overpays (mostly) and, at the very least, guarantee that the rancid monotone of the holidays is broken and carpeted by fresh scent of pine.

And up at 6.30 in the morning I did, yesterday, a Saturday per se, and donned a polo T with denim trousers (the standard clothing for a professional event cameraman, and the only choice for his assistant) with much aplomb over Hey There Delilah.

It was the first wedding video I’m assisting my uncle with, and I don’t mean the wedding dinners I’ve mostly helped out to shoot; this was an actual Chinese wedding ceremony where the groom has to go over to his bride’s house with his gang of loyal friends and brace through a series of barriers (upheld and fortified strongly by enthusiastic friends of the bride, armed to the brim with unmatched meanness).

Think of the barriers as tests for the groom in his quest to fetch his bride; he’ll be asked to pay the guards, recite the Matrimonial Terms of Agreement, consume some nasty food (wasabi filled baguettes) and sing as loudly as he can, so that the neighbours could hear, his bride’s favourite song. After that they groom gets the bride back to his house, where they did prayers, and serve tea to the elders, and a merry luncheon would follow.

I’ve been through this sort of ceremonies. Once. In fact, this very uncle’s, whose equipment I have to watch over and batteries I have to recharge, so I know enough to anticipated the flow of events. But oh, weddings are such jovial places to stand, even if you’re sweating profusely and trying to keep your arm straight while holding the light that illuminate all and save the video from turning into a complete shadowy flop, and there’s something about smiling over the happiness of others and wondering when you’ll be there, as the couples were, nervous and excited and cheerful.

The groom was a fat man with an equally fat appetite for joy, but the oddity of him is the out-of-place patch of greying hair at left temple, which was either purported or something that happened over nights of insufficient sleep, and it must’ve been considered as something cool or something superstitiously amazing; because something like that looked pretty ridiculous at most. His bride was almost his size and almost his height, and almost someone a shallow man would cock his eyebrows in a very condescending “oh”, but that day she was the most beautiful woman in the world, with the most beautiful smile, as most brides do on their wedding day.

I tell you this with every conviction and truth; weddings (or Chinese weddings, to be more specific) are sweaty affairs. Whether or not the perspiration is warm or cold is left to be considered, or guessed, by onlooking people, but what I’ve come to know is that the bride and groom would be bathed in sweat when the prayers and tea-serving are over. This particular wedding was because of a badly placed altar which sat under the fan, and for fear the candles would extinguish, the fan was left still and silent, and the audience and couple were baked in the crowded hall in a stuffy afternoon.

Despite the sweat, the wedding was excellent, and the teas were drunk and gifts given and the lunch was merry with laughter and friendly jeers. The next night the bride and groom would be toasted to and praised with roars and liquor, over tables of cold hotel food. Someone would say, “May the bride and groom be showered in fortune and wealth, and blessed with good children and grandchildren,” and everyone would drink to the married couple, and if things ought to be left at endings we considered best, then I say this is where we should ever think about the married couple again.

There was another shooting after the wedding, but perhaps I will tell of it another day. That is, if I ever tell of the many things I wish to tell of the month of September and the whole lot of it, and by golly, my brother is home and is kicking me away from his computer.

Goodnight people.