Today I went to my brother’s wedding banquet. The official wedding ceremony occurred a few months ago and the wedding celebration my brother and his wife threw was a couple of weeks ago, but my parents wanted to throw a wedding banquet to celebrate their union as well. I think that this is relatively common in Chinese culture and it makes sense logistically – no reason for all these uncles and aunties that are not blood related to all be invited to the official wedding celebration where the seats are limited.
Anyways, my day started off with me waking up around 8:30 am. Then trying to fall back asleep and then giving up and not falling back asleep. Then I decided that I should write a short toast for my brother because that was one of my assigned tasks for today. Spent about an hour writing a 1 minute speech and I felt content. I wasn’t the main toaster, so I thought that it was sufficient. After that, read some manga since Shonen Jump comes out on Sunday. Watched some anime, as you may know, Spy x Family is out on Hulu on Sundays. I ate the usual cinnamon raisin bagel and cream cheese and made some pasta with tomato sauce for lunch. My roommate was awake so we chatted about some random topic and I got the call to get ready to leave. I got dressed in a dark button up shirt with some hearts, because it is a loving environment, and put on the suit jacket and the black shoes. The H&M dress pants felt a bit tighter than in 2017 for some reason.. weird. Left the condo building and saw a group of Asian girls. They looked at me and laughed. Not sure why since I was dressed for success, but you know, they were most likely not talking about me. Went to the metro, waited for the metro, and listened to Spotify.
Got off the metro after 30 minutes and went back to my brother’s place to help pack some alcohol and wedding favors. Greeted the bride and her sisters and waited to leave for the banquet. The banquet was about 50 minutes away and one of the sisters was nauseous in the car. I haven’t had too many interactions with my brother’s wife and her sister, but I would like to avoid a throw up situation in most scenarios. We got to the restaurant safely and I started helping set up where needed.
Another one of my tasks was to take pictures at the event. I dislike taking pictures, but If I am given a task, I’ll do it. So, I took a bunch of photos of people, of the wall, of the name of the restaurant, of people taking pictures of people. I also tried to fulfill my obligation to small talk so I was chatting and picture taking and it was great – high energy and shooting the shit. Everyone was standing around so I could easily say “Hi” and “How are you” and then get pulled away to take a picture without talking to them again. I hadn’t looked at the guest list, but I later realized that some childhood friends would be here. Great. I had not prepared any conversation topics to talk to them about and I am not very comfortable with talking to people my age especially in a larger group setting and when the people are female and when the people are dressed nice. So, I did not talk to them for very long.
Lots of photos of the bride and groom with the guests. Lots of my parents’ friends from church and their jobs. Lots of me nodding my head to greet people. Lots of hungry people.
Before the food was served, we had a few speeches. My dad was MC’ing and he kicked us off with introductions of the out of town visitors. My brother’s wife’s dad said a few words as well. Afterwards, my brother’s friend shared some stories about their antics near my parents’ home and in Australia. My brother’s wife’s sister shared some stories about her sister. Then it was my turn. I had a very short speech in comparison to them and I quickly went through it and sat down soon after. There were some laughs during the speech but I hadn’t put any jokes in there. After that, my brother and his wife gave impromptu speeches and my dad finished it off with another speech and we started a slideshow and started eating.
So much food. I think there were like 10 courses of food. A cold appetizer dish, shrimp crab balls, lobster, vegetables with abalone, chicken with fried skin, a whole flounder, a crab soup, fried rice, noodles, honey walnut shrimp, perhaps some more, and some desserts. Kinda nuts.
During the dinner, I was tasked to eat food, so that’s what I did. I got full and I didn’t want to go to other people’s table to socialize because then I would need to know what to talk about so I just kept going to the bathroom. The slide show was neat, lots of pictures of our family and friends and growing up. Eventually, we did some rounds of cheers-ing with champagne and more pictures.
The night died down, people said their farewells, and we started cleaning up. I did have some very brief small talk to the people my age and said farewell to them. I drove back to the apartment and started thinking about how to write this blog.
All in all, another new experience for me in the books. Multiple uncles and aunties asked if I have a significant other yet, and I said no and kept the pleasantries flowing. One of my dad’s friends even took out their phone to brag about his daughter and I was like “yeah, very pretty”, and “wow, nice apartment, oh and nice people too”. I also got compliments about my speech, and I was surprised because I literally wrote it this morning out of bed and I didn’t put any stories in it. Perhaps it’s less about the words and more about the feelings and delivery.
Well, if you want another internet toast for reference, here’s what I wrote down to say:
Hi, thank you for gathering here today to celebrate <groom> and <bride>’s marriage. I’d like to propose a toast to them. I’ve known <groom> for a long time and he’s been a good brother. He is mindful of my interests and makes an effort to ensure that I am well fed and content. Although there have been times where he teased me, I still value our relationship and am glad that he is in my life. It’s great that he’s been able to find love in his life. <Groom> and <bride> get along pretty well and seem to enjoy each others company. They share a lot of their responsibilities together and they also put in the effort to show appreciation for one another. I look forward to seeing them continue to grow with all the joys and sorrows that life throws at them. Please join me in a toast to thank them and to which them the best in their journey.
Jeffrey's Thoughts 
Someone asked me what stories I would’ve added if I had a chance to add a story. I’m not sure if I have any stories that would’ve fit the mood, but some stories that I thought about were:
* the time where my brother staged a kidnapping at my middle school. It was a fake kidnapping with his friends
* the time where my brother asked me for someone in my middle school that he could ask to his high school prom
* the times where he wanted to wrestle me and I gave up immediately since my ears were sensitive
* the story where he told me that he pooped off a bridge and then asked his teammate to rip their shirt so he could wipe his butt
* the story where he asked a girl to homecoming or prom by bringing in a tree, as opposed to a flower
* the story where he dressed as a robot to school for decades day and was pushed down the stairs by someone
* the story where he hit me in the eyebrow with a mini golf club
* the times where I would hide my candy and he would eat it
* the times his high school friends were over and would shave each others heads and play ping pong related games
* the times where he claimed he was a man of the people and that he was so much better at dancing than his peers. Room for debate of course
* the time where I traveled with him and his crew to Canada for a breaking tournament and we visited a strip club called Club Super Sex and left pretty soon after since I didn’t realize how much strip clubs cost
* the times where I had to take care of his cat that was actually a gift to his ex girlfriend but she didn’t want a pet
* the time where he told me that I was a robot
* the time where he told me that I was adopted
* the time that he told me that mountain goats eat volcanic rock
* the time where we climbed Mount Fuji together and collected stamps on our walking sticks but ran out of money so we were not able to get all the stamps and had to wait for our parents to show up at the summit and it was cloudy so it wasn’t a good view
* the time where we were coming back from Ocean City when he got a call from an HR person extending him a job offer
* the times where he taught me some dance moves and asked me for feedback on the moves he was thinking about
* the time where I moved schools because my parents did not feel that my brother had a good high school education
* the times where my brother bought me a lot of clothes as gifts and pays for my food almost every time I hang out with him
* the times where I hid in my room when my brother and my parents would yell at each other
* the times where I would see my brother cry and I was unmoved
* the times where we would ride a lot of roller coasters together in amusement parks
* the times where we visited our cousins in Canada and we would sing in the car
* the times where we visited Hong Kong and would hang out with family and our family would tease us
* the time where my brother defended me after I looked up porn on my dad’s laptop. I didn’t know about browser history and incognito mode back then
* the times where he included me in activities with his friends because I do not have very many, at least very many that I am comfortable reaching out to
* the time when he and his classmates formed a boy group and made an album
* the times where my brother and I would practice piano at the piano teachers place and we would take turns crying at the piano. When it was not my turn, I would play with the Lincoln logs
* the time where I had to entertain his friends in NY before he arrived and I blew up an air mattress for them to rest in the living room of the apartment
* the time where he told me that guests that are female should be given the bed and that I should sleep on the couch or on an air mattress
* the time where he helped me move from NY back to Maryland
* the time where he got married a couple weeks ago
and I’m sure there are many more memorable moments that I’ve shared with him – my memory is not my greatest strength
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