‘Weddig’ Box
The Wedding Venue; Novotel Hotel, Yangon
& The Banquet (Xiyan), Kunming
We had two weddings in both places of home. It was almost a traveling curation project themed around “dignity” and “well” on two ends. We were the curators, performers, and tour guides. Many of Diana’s close friends could not return to Burma——some were in the jungle or aboard joining the revolution, others avoiding the compulsory conscription. Meanwhile, my friends from China were able to visit, but they spoke neither English nor Burmese. They came with blessing, but without awareness of those who were absent. On their ten-day trip to Burma, they were guests, not friends.
To conserve tradition is to re-perform it. At the Burmese wedding, we were adorned with the headdresses of the king and queen. Every setting was about us, but we were puppets that could only smile. “Petrified, she can’t respond, her face caught between los intersticios, the spaces between the different worlds she inhabits.”¹⁰ The ten-day wedding trip did not allow Diana to rest. As the bride, the families expected her to perform manner and grace at all times. Though Yangon was mostly at peace, it remained unstable. She was also to take responsibility for the safety of all guests from China, including me. “The ability to respond is what is meant by responsibility, yet our cultures take away our ability to act.” ¹¹
The wedding in China took place later in July. When asking my parents if there were any crucial traditional procedures to follow, my mother contemplated and said no, while my father turned to TikTok for research. Chinese history has been refreshed over the past hundred years through revolution. And by being away from central China, I realized that our traditions in Yunnan are imagined. Just as we invented new customs during the spring festival in Chicago, we reimagined our wedding in Kunming. Therefore, we built our own stage, with friends from Yunnan, America, and those from Burma but living aboard. Together we wrote a play. “Besides fighting, fleeing, freezing, or submitting las nepantleras usan otra media——they employ a fifth tactic.”¹² The play contained the important wedding formula of exchanging rings and kissing. Both sides of parents were satisfied, and we introduced them to the stages as our great sponsors. “For nepantleras, to bridge is an act of will, an act of love, an attempt toward compassion and reconciliation, and a promise to be present with the pain of others without losing themselves to it.”¹³ Imagining a wedding was not a radical move, but it was a small revolution——to our elders who lived away from the border, and the imagined tradition they uphold.
10. Anzaldúa, Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza, 42.
11. Ibid., 42.
12. Anzaldúa, This Bridge We Call Home, 567.
13. Ibid., 4.
Kunming wedding liquor label