A Wedding Ceremony

As today was the Peasants Day schools and offices were closed. This day there was a wedding ceremony. The bridegroom was a technical staff at Japanese Language Department and he was 38 years old. The bride was 4th year part-time student majoring in Japanese and she was 30 years old. She was an English teacher at a university at the same time. She was a bright student. It is not a strange case to wed late in Myanmar. Especially most of the teachers and students at the university of Foreign Languages were graduates. Their age was 30 or 35 years old.

At the wedding ceremony the first thing, which surprised me, was a large number of people. There were about 500 people at the ceremony. At some ceremonies 700 or 800 people could attend.

The place for the wedding ceremony was at a large compound of the university and the room was large. The time for ceremony was between 10:30am at 12 o'clock. Those coming to the ceremony were entertained to ten and cakes. The bride and bridegroom greeted the guests. The ceremony was neither noisy nor silent.

There were no words of praise at the ceremony. Besides, 25 there was no alcohol one could deal with foreigner easily.

As it was hard to describe the bride's clothes I would like to account the bridegroom's clothes. In this country men wear Longyi instead of long parts. Myanmar men usually wear cotton Longyi at ordinary occasion but at special occasion men wear silk Longyi and Myanmar jacket. But all the guests did not wear such clothes. Myanmar dresses were very interesting.

At the entrance presents were filed up. It was a very pleasant sight. It seemed that some presents were given before the ceremony and some of them were cash.

It is unusual to hold a wedding ceremony in a university compound. Generally wedding ceremonies are held at monasteries. If the parents of the bride and the bridegroom are rich the wedding ceremony is held at big hotels.

At the fixed time the bride and the bridegroom walked down to a raised platform with accompaniment of the bride and bridegroom's attendants.

In Japan when the bride and bridegroom walk to the raised platform music is played. In Myanmar there is no such presentations. It is good to look the bride and bridegroom walking to the raised platform. The bride who wearing jewelry is very pretty. Most of the couple married in a court or privately at home before the wedding ceremony. At the ceremony an elder person announced that the ceremony had started. The band also started to play music and songsters sang songs. There were no greetings. Lastly the persons who coming were given to eat and drink-tea, coffee, cakes and ice-creams.

Things are different from each other as place differs. Myanmar wedding ceremony is very interesting in comparison with Japanese one.

When the wedding ceremony was over I came out of the reception room. As the cars were parked double I could not drive my car and waited for about 20 minutes.

So this is a difference between Myanmar and Japan?