Kunming Part 9: Ju Yuan Lang Wedding Company (part II)

The next time I meet Min Dan is on that weekend. At the KTV place, she had told me that she would like to meet me on the weekend in order to try on dresses. I really had no idea what that meant, except that it had something to do with what I was going to be doing at the anniversary party. But I just went with it and met her at the company’s small store on the weekend. As soon as I step in, she happily greets me and leads me upstairs to their dressing area. I still have no idea what’s going on as they try dress after dress on me, not big old wedding dresses mind you, but short above-the-knee dresses that could very well have been bridesmaid dresses…but I don’t know for sure because I admit I’m not as acquainted with Chinese wedding ceremonies as I feel I should be. What I do know is that they are not the same as American weddings. They still maintain a sense of Chinese tradition to them, but year after year they become more and more modern. For example, before the traditional wedding dress color was red…but now people wear both red and white as well.

Ultimately, the found a dress which they liked on me, a white dress that had these crimped edges but swayed when I spun around. Now, it was a very beautiful dress and I didn’t look bad in it, but I really didn’t like it. I like looking good, but I don’t like looking frumpy and HYPER-feminine. Ugh! Haha, I’m sorry…I’m an athlete and a bit of a tomboy (just a bit), and things like lace and ruffles and flowers usually don’t sit too well with me in general. I’d never wear them of my own accord because I personally wanted to. But I accepted this, even though I was reminded of the chant I and my soccer teammates used to chant when we were young girls (we were about my two little sisters’ ages, actually): “We don’t play with Barbie dolls, we go kicking soccer balls, Sound off! One two!”

So ultimately they decided that this was the best dress to wear…I am just so sorry I don’t have pictures…my camera was out of commission (broken). I will have to ask my friend to send me some pictures, because the pictures from this entire event were amazing. Anyway, they chose this dress, and THEN they proceeded to put WINGS on me…and a TIARA! Whoa-ho-ho…this is far more than I bargained for, but still I went with it just to see how the entire thing would play out. I did feel at times like none of this made sense and I really shouldn’t be agreeing to this, but I just couldn’t let it go. Something just continued to keep me from dropping this thing altogether.

So costume was all figured out, and then my purpose was explained to me. I was to be a kind of “usher/greeter” person. I, with actually four other angels as I found out (darn, I really wish I had pictures of this all), was to stand at the doorway of the event and say “Welcome to Ju Yuan Lang’s (that’s the name of the company) 10^th Year Anniversary Party! Please come in.” In Chinese, of course. Let’s not forget that all these stories have all occurred in Chinese…and I’m proud to say it. All my life I’ve wished to be bilingual…it’s been a secret wish of mine, and now if I’m not completely bilingual, I’m pretty darn close to getting there. But being able to have all these adventures in a completely different language is overwhelming and humbling. I’m really happy.

Anyway, afterwards, during the actual event, a few special persons were to be commended and were going to make speeches. I was to lead some of them up to the stage and then back to their seats. Pretty simple. But that was the end of that next day. But before I left, Min Dan decided she would ask me if I was willing to participate in a dance performance.

Okay, now I’ve seen amateur dance performances in my lifetime, and I don’t like being a part of them…I’m not talking about amateur dance performances choreographed by dancers, I’m talking amateur performances choreographed by people who can’t dance. And though I’m not the best dancer, I’m still alright. Though Carnegie Mellon’s dance performances aren’t at the professional level, they are still quite good (I have danced in a few of them) and so that’s where I set my boundary for good dancing. And I just wasn’t sure if Min Dan was actually a dancer or not. All in all, I did NOT want to do this dance. I told her I was busy and didn’t have the time to rehearse it, which was true…because we had like a week until the performance and I’m thinking she’s going to want to practice like five times this week and so I’m thinking, “No, that’s not what’s going to happen.” But she sighed and said, “Okay, I guess I’ll just perform the dance all by myself.” Now I’m just like my mom in the sense that at times I can be persuaded into things out of pity, and that got me. Darn you, empathy!

So I agreed to meet a little later that week to practice the dance with her. We didn’t meet five times a week like I thought was going to happen; we actually only met twice, on a Thursday and the Saturday. The dance was a simple/easy-to-learn dance, in fact it was the dance to Shakira’s “Waka-waka” from the 2010 World Cup in South Africa. And it was quite cute, and I had a fun time learning it. And ultimately, why I had accepted was because Min Dan had done nothing but treat me like a friend the entire time. She took responsibility for me and made sure that I was perfectly comfortable with everything going on. So I took a risk and trusted her, something that I don’t do for strangers at all. This was most certainly an unlikely circumstance that I believe I won’t attempt again…I was simply lucky this time, extremely lucky because it ultimately turned out to be more wonderful than I could have imagined it would be.

We rehearsed the Saturday before the performance (it was on a Tuesday), and then she rented our costumes (two hula grass skirts with leis and a bikini top sort of thing), and then she treated me to dinner. The food was absolutely amazing, but spicy…I would come to find out later that pretty much all Min Dan eats is spicy food, haha. She loves that stuff, hehehehe. And then the big day quickly approached. More next post.