Wedding!! and a departure to....
This past Sunday I went to a T1betan wedding in a village not far outside of Shangi-la. It was in Hamugu Village 哈木谷村：
I went with friends from the Handicraft Center. It was a boy's wedding, meaning the festvities were lasting for 3 days! Sunday was day #2 of 3. It was also the day the bride arrived from her village (nearby), escorted by a procesion of women from her village:
Relatives of the bride wore this special gold-colored shawl. Male relatives of the groom were wearing a gold-colored breastplate-kind-of-thing. But it seemed rude to take their photos.
However, because one of the people we'd come with had already integrated herself with the cohort of grandmothers and was having her picture taken... on their suggestion I jumped in it too.
There were multiple rounds of food, including butter tea (hurray!) and beer/coke:
There was even a gentleman in a yellow coat offering up something slightly different. Not only that, but on the back of his jacket were the words in large text: "Volunteer Minister," and on the front, "Church of Scientology." strange. Later when I asked him about the jacket he said (as I'd suspected) that someone had given it to him. But in the meantime, he went around to tables, offering cigarettes to the men. When he got to our table containing 2 foreigners he barely paused before uttering, "Hello?" and putting forward his tray. It was funny.
Before we left we went into one of the houses, because the manager of the Handicraft Center had an item of business to attend to. In the top floor of the house we found the [fairly typical] chunks of drying meat. In this case they seemed mainly to be pig heads. Yum? We also saw the party-favors before they'd gotten given out: 2 large lumps of brown sugar + 1 package of instant noodles, given in a cellophane bag. Ah, cultural differences.
Shu Wei with pig head. And, pig heads/parts:
Then, for wont of transport options and because it was good weather, we walked back to town. Across the grassland. For 2 hours. See the moon above the mountains in the 2nd pic?
But that was then. And this morning at 4:30 a.m. found me waking to cheery folk music up on a train that would soon pull into Kunming. Now, at the ripe hour of almost 7a.m., I sit at an internet cafe near the train station waiting for the sun to rise and for public transportation to begin. And why am I in Kunming, you might ask????---- because I'm going to Italy! To see my sister and mom.
This is a pic of 1 sign leading into Shangri-la's Old Town, which is variously called: -Dukezong Lold Town; -City zong, Alone; -Alone, Pope City. I'm sure this will be great prep for the Vatican. Right?
