Khmer wedding

April 1, 2009

I had been invited to a wedding by the bride, who is the cook of the Sailing Club. It is in Kep. I have been to many weddings before so I know routine. The bride is in bright coloured clothes, sewn tightly to her body. In the humidity, she doesn't seem to mind the sweat and the aggravation of changing from one gown to the next. The groom is plain, in his ill fitted suits too big for his arms and legs. The music is deafening for the whole city to know there's a wedding. If you get lost, follow the music. There is a stack of speakers, eight or ten of them. A table with a vase of fake flowers is set in the middle near the speakers. People would dance circling it. Dancing by the speakers can definitely burst out your ears. The men, when drunk, dance with each other, without a smile, as if dancing is a labour of sadness. The girls would join in later, in a pack, feet shoveling grass or dirt, in front of a house, outdoors with the crickets, the frogs and the toads, a wedding rejoices in a kind of sadness, for the bride is being taken by the groom to live with his family and start a new life. Having saved enough to buy his bride, the groom is happy, for every first night, a shivering emotion that floats on sexual desire, wanting a way with touches to do no wrong.