I told my stomach who was who and that was the end of that. Now that we had the bride and the rest of the ladies in tow, we cruised back to the new house. Dragon dancer dudes, drumming drummers and deafening devices of destruction dumbfounded us at the door. All the manholes on the street at pathways were covered up with coloured paper, to ensure the dirtiness of the underworld was kept away, at least until the honeymoon. There was a giant inflatable arch at the entry to the apartment building and according to another tradition I never got an explanation for, the groom had to lift up his bride, spin a 1080 and then carry her up to the 5th floor apartment. He pulled it off no problem while a neighborhood sized gathering looked on. With that one down, the bridesmaid and I tried to mosey on in after them, but were stopped by one of the dragon dudes and told we had to follow suit. Goddamn. Thankfully my counterpart was Chinese and not a 200 pound tub of lard. I managed to make it up a bunch of the stairs and when no one was looking, the bridesmaid dismounted. On our way up, we managed to pop a good portion of the balloons that were inflated only a few short hours earlier. Noise is a key theme here people. It keeps you awake, which is more than I can say for most Western weddings.

Now it was the bride’s turn to get the green light from the groom’s parents. More stuffed envelopes changed hands, and tea was served by the bride to the new in-laws. At this point everyone was more mellow as most of the major traditions had been fulfilled. Lots of photos and video were taken, some games with little kids asking the newlyweds something I can’t remember, and we all boarded up into our red convoy of cars to the banquet hall.

There was one more surprise that I should have anticipated. You see, I met this friend of mine through the mountain biking scene in Qingdao when I first arrived there. Over the years we managed to keep riding together despite the fact that I’m always on the move and he works a strange schedule. I love biking. He loves biking. He loves his new wife. But he also still loves biking. We stopped halfway to hotel where the banquet was to be and I asked what was going on.

“We waiting for few moar friends, should be ten minute” he said.

Sure enough 10 minutes later and an entire squadron of bikers showed up, their bikes all blinged out with balloons and wedding decorations, ready to accompany us to the banquet. That wasn’t all.

“Get out of car, we ride!”

We all got out, two people got off their bikes and let the bridesmaid and I ride, while one guy had a bike for the groom and bride to double on. I was having a hard enough time riding in a suit and dress shoes, I takes some real bananas to double a girl who’s wearing a dress that runs 20 feet long without it getting caught up in the gears. Every damn pair of eyes along the route was glued to us like they watching an Adam Sandler movie for the first time, happy, some laughing, unaware that it only gets dumber and funnier the more you think about it.

Arriving at the banquet hall, we were greeted by an even larger group of noise making people and dragon dancers than was at the house. This group were real pros, they made the last group look like street bums. There was actually three weddings going on that day, and they all do it at the same time, so the huge crowd waiting at the door wasn’t all for us. There was other groups of noise people and dragon dancers waiting for the other newlyweds, which was a little awkward. I’m not sure why, just left an air of tension to the scene. I was almost waiting for the noise people to try and out noise each other and the dragon dancers to have a dragon dance off. Shit woulda gone down! Down to Chinatown! Riiiight…Anyways after all the chaos and paparazzi mob of photos we made our way in.

*Chinese weddings have nothing in fours and no fours. Now don’t you forget it!

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