this is from an email written to my friend, l, two days after the incident.
two days ago, i went to a wedding. some distant uncle of mine was getting married. i went thinking it was free food and alcohol, and was pretty happy about it. when i got there i got accosted by all sorts of aunts and uncles and grandpas i didn't know i had. i swear there was like a hundred of them. i'd never met most of them. there was a lot of forced smiling and awkward hugs and hand shakes, and me not understanding them because they spoke in dialect. anyway. at the reception, the appetizers were being brought on and i was getting along dandy fine and just chilling in my seat talking to my cousin whom i do know, when this grandpa looking dude approached me and gave the impossible command. he (and at this point i was like who the f are you?) asked b (the boyf) and me to give the toast. excuse me? me? the toast? THE toast? the one where we get microphones and have to ad lib an awkward congratulations in chinese?
so i was like, are you serious? so in my head i did a quick pro-con comparison. here are some reasons that i shouldn't give the toast:
1. i had never met the bride or the groom
2. i don't speak chinese well enough to do it
3. there were 250 people there
4. like, seriously? THE toast? the bride and grooms' parents don't even have to get up to say anything and they ask the (probably) only strangers in the room. why?
here are the reasons that i should:
1. i'm with a white person.
so i was like, no way man. i'm not doing that. but he insisted, and quite literally dragged b and me over to meet the mc. at this point i was close to either fainting or crying. my aunts were laughing and yelling in my ear. this was quite unpleasant because they'd lean in as if they were going to whisper something important in my ear, then scream "you can do it!". this happened multiple times. the mc was a white faced boy who spoke really fast in a really high voice. he stressed me out. i was quite unhappy. i really didn't want to do it because i felt i was not qualified or fit to be a crucial part of the wedding process. this whole thing was confusing to me.
buuuuuuut we ended up doing it, and because i was so anxious and annoyed, my aunts wrote down a little ditty for me to read out loud. first they wanted me to memorize it, and you know how i am with memorizing shit. not my forte. especially in a language that i haven't really used since like the beginning of time. so after the bride and groom say i do and you know, that shit we are invited onto stage as, i kid you not, "the guests of honor". i say my thing with my eyes practically glued to the paper and b says some stuff in english. we were introduced as "this pretty girl and that handsome boy", and i was asked to translate what b had said. i made it up. then we were forced to hug the bride and groom. whoo! same sex hugs! whose idea was this? i don't know. do i want to throttle them? maybe. unless they are related to me. then i'd just have a fat man sit on them for a bit.
