About 15 minutes before the appointed hour, we go to the reception site, where we sign a guest book and present our gift envelope. There is already a rather impressive stack of envelopes on the table. We’re given tickets and our names are checked off a master list, presumably to deter crashers or maybe for book keeping purposes, I don’t know.
The crowd has begun to gather. Jean and I are introduced to the groom’s parents. Jean nods and smiles a lot and I babble Japanese-like syllables intended to be greetings and thanks for the splendid time so far. Just before we go into the dining room, Erika appears for the first of a series of photo opportunities. She’s wearing a pure white cover kimono of some sort over a brocaded one, and has her hair done in a very traditional (i.e. old) style. (“Surely that’s a wig?”) She looks faint; I think to wear one of those things properly you have to have all your body parts securely trussed, and if you can still breathe it’s not quite right.
There are pictures with the groom and her parents and his parents and both families and on and on. Actually, most of the guests take snaps. Everybody but us brought cameras; we
didn’t want to appear gauche by taking pictures. Silly us. There is also a studio video camera on a tall tripod taking continuous footage of every move, klieg lights and all. Erika must have been miserable!
We precede the happy couple to the dining area. There are maybe a dozen tables in the room, each with about ten guests. We are the only foreigners. We have been assigned to sit with Hiro’s younger brother, a sales manager for a Toyota dealership in Los Angeles, who speaks English well enough to answer any questions we might have and probably also to make sure we don’t insist on singing “Melancholy Baby” after the first couple of drinks. We’re in the first tier of tables, up near the head table. We’re evidently persons of importance, since our table is also inhabited by Hiroshi’s boss and other dignitaries. We nod and smile around the table, making friendly noises and wishing we had at least minimal control of the social language.
We were given a few minutes to get settled into our seats and then the lights dimmed, the music came up (the “Wedding March,” what else?), the main doors flew open and the spots hit Erika and Hiro in traditional dress, Erika’s white kimono now gone to reveal the glories of the brocade she was wearing underneath. We all bolted to our feet in spontaneous applause as the couple stood in the lights for a moment before they paraded to the head table, where they were seated at the center, flanked by Hiro’s parents. As they passed the windows on the far wall, the drapes were pulled back to reveal Osaka Castle in the background. Very impressive.
Okay, all that was just preamble. Now the party began in earnest. First, champagne was poured for all and we stood and knocked back a congratulatory Kanpai. Then Hiro’s father stood up and read a detailed summary of the accomplishments of both Hiro and Erika, mentioning their affiliations with Snow College among lots of others.
Then a number of people got up to make congratulatory speeches and to talk about how well prepared these young people are for their life together by all the fine things they’ve done in the past. I’m not sure of the cultural value of this exercise, unless it’s to remove all doubts as to the suitability of the bride and groom for each other. From my limited understanding of the language used, it sounded almost like a matchmaker’s report (scouting survey?). Obviously some kind of standard procedure, though.
While all this was going on, food was being served. I have never seen such fast, efficient and unobtrusive service before. The servers were quick and seemed, despite their relatively small numbers, to serve everybody almost simultaneously. It was almost all cold (intentionally), but that’s not enough by itself to make it seem like we were all served at once. And the people who were running the show were amazing. Absolutely every move was choreographed to the centimeter, and yet all the assistants were nearly invisible. Every once in a while I would see a person drop to his knees as the video lights threatened to expose him positioning either Hiro or Erika for another activity. There’s a Japanese art form called Bunraku, a form of puppetry in which the puppeteers wear black gowns and hoods and work in full view of the audience but are nonetheless invisible. The work of the “wedding company” was almost exactly like that and by itself was almost worth the price of the tickets. But I digress.
Food. Well, it was Japanese. Some of it was raw. All of it was beautifully presented, and some of it was quite good. Remembering the advice of my social adviser, I at least tried everything that was put before me. Was reminded why I don’t eat sushi more often. The taste really isn’t all that bad; the texture is. I could chew it, but I had a hard time swallowing it. Some dishes (there were at least a dozen different courses) were quite good. A couple of shrimp dishes. A lemon-flavored soup. Roast Kobe beef with fresh horseradish. A drop-dead delicious baked lobster & mushrooms in a white sauce and packed back in the lobster shell. Beer. Red wine. White wine. (The wine served at
appropriate times, of course.) Juice or sake or whiskey & water for those with odd preferences. Brandy after, with coffee. Very civilized.
But that was only part of the show. In this early part of the reception, the first speeches were given, as I said. This was also the part where Hiro and Erika cut the cake. Photo op. Rumor has it that it wasn’t a real cake (Jean refers to it as a rent-a-cake). Don’t know. Not important. But they stood up there with a very sharp knife and held it just so while many many pictures were taken by all their friends. Hiro tried to plant a kiss on Erika’s cheek, and nearly got himself damaged by the knife. After the cake cutting, all the guests received small boxes with little cakes in them symbolic of the ‘real’ thing. No frosting.
End of act one. Hiro and Erika were escorted from the room for their first costume change, and the guests got down to the serious business of consuming. Lots of talk noise and food and unobtrusive service.
Read Part 3
