McYang Clan

When Ms. Yeni originally invites me to accompany her to a wedding, she tells me it will be a traditional Javanese wedding so I rearrange my plans to have Sunday free. On Saturday Yeni informs me that this is the mother of one of her students and she is marrying her second bule husband, the first one having died of a heart attack. I cringe. I have an idea what this is going to look like and it's not entirely pretty.

"You're certain this will be a Javanese wedding?"

"Oh yes," she says, "very traditional."
 
When we arrive at the hotel and walk through the doors to the reception hall we are serenaded by what I believe may very well be the world's only Asian bagpipe band. Yeni looks afraid as we walk past the squawking instruments.

"What is this?" she asks.

"Bagpipes." I look at the names scrawled across the banner on the back wall. "My guess is Alistair is Scottish."

As the hall begins to fill with retired bules and Indonesian girls dressed like prostitutes my stomach churns with disgust. There are women dressed in tartan mini skirts, poured into satin gowns with above mid thigh hems, teased hair and clownish makeup.

"Is this traditional bule man wedding dress?" Yeni asks earnestly.

"No, those are kilts and only Scotsmen, from Scotland, wear them."

Aside from a two minute appearance by some Javanese dancers and the fact that I'm the only white female in the room there is nothing to distinguish this from a Western wedding. I am starting my second glass of wine when Yeni says, "Please, Ms. I want a picture with one of these men in dress."

"Which one?"

She picks the tallest, baldest, ugliest man in the room. Turns out, I discover later in the evening, he's the groom. So I go and ask him if he might pose for a picture and he kindly obliges. Yeni is over the moon."Oh, thank you miss, thank you so much for making it."

We are about to leave when three reasonably young looking bule show up. None of them have girls on their arms and I decide, with the help of my third glass of wine, this might be my only shot at lining Yeni up with bule boyfriend. So we stick it out and follow the wedding procession, including the kilted Asian bag piping band, down the street to the expat bar. I manage to get one phone number for Yeni and two for me though, between the noisy bar and the additional cocktail, I can't recall if my numbers were social exchanges or business.

I am hungover for my first day back at school while Yeni is on cloud nine for having a real live bule's phone number. She wants to relive every moment of her "most wonderful experience in my life" with me.

But, during the course of our discussion she tells me, "I was so terrified, I could not breathe. I've never been before. I thought maybe only this happen in movies, but now I see bule lifestyle maybe I don't want bule boyfriend, yes?"

I do tell her that no bule can drink like the Celts but she seems unconvinced. I say nothing more to try and dissuade her. At thirty years old she is far sweeter and more innocent than I was at fourteen and I really don't ever want to see my friend cheaply tarted up for some white man's thrill. So I say, "Find a man who makes you happy and quit worrying about his skin."

She just sighs.