Nibugassou (二部合奏)
MJ and I are planning on doing a violin duet for our
wedding. Not the most novel of ideas, but a bold one that we hope to enliven
our wedding pictures and our guests’ experience of our wedding, which on all
other points is pretty cookie-cutter, a typical affair without much pomp and
pizzazz, which is just how MJ and I like it. I’ve actually never done a violin
duet, even throughout my junior high and high school years, I either only did a
string quartet (with violas, cellos, other string instruments) or violin solo
because I was both not that interested in music but also a little too
competitive to try to collaborate with my closest violin-playing friend (and
kind of rival) to engage in a duet. A duet, though, is really suitable for a couple
to bond and find ourselves. Couples do so many things nowadays like first
dances, run races together, but playing
a whole song together, in my opinion, is truly a melding experience to
intertwine two people together, and what better way to do that than at a
wedding celebrating the intertwining of lives already?
Imouto (
My sister is an odd creature. I see so many differences
between her and my life, like being obsessed with anime, joining taekwondo as a
college activity, playing piano but hesitantly, making sarcastic jokes about
Asian stereotypes (she loves reciting jokes like “I got an A-! the Asian F!”).
I get frustrated about how unmotivated she is sometimes, her bad habits and
getting angry at certain things, and I wonder, “Was I like this when I was 20
years old?” (She’s 9.5 years younger than I am).
But then when I consider it, I realize how similar she is to
me, and the reason I get so frustrated by her mannerisms and habits is because
I was similar to that when I was her age. Being obsessed with anime? I wasn’t
into anime, but a whole host of other insignificant things in media that I got
really into for a short period of time, like A Teens music, reality TV (think
Survivor, the Mole), so much so I dedicated my life to watching videos and
following and thinking about it all the time. Joining taekwondo is a good
activity that she proactively found herself, which I did with tennis and
extracurricular activities in college. Sarcasm? I was one of the most sarcastic
people I knew in high school, I was able to reign it in a little bit and cut
out some of the more negative and inappropriate stuff, but I still have use
sarcasm. I realize that a lot of my frustration with her is that she does the
same thing I did, makes the same mistakes, has the same failures, which if I could
get to do life over again I would learn not to do. But I don’t go the extra
step of realizing that Emily has never gone through that process of making
mistakes and failures yet, and that those experiences will be helpful for her
life down the line. I just have to watch her grow and try to hope she turns out
as well (or even better! Than I did.) Also, today she was in a very good mood
and let her human traits come out and seemed like a very cool person (even down
to earth!) that I would actually want to hang out with, so I wanted to praise
her. But who knows what new frustrations I will have tomorrow!
Bachelor party-
Not sure about Koreans, but neither Chinese nor Japanese
cultures have a set “bachelor party.” Despite very specific ideas like “NEET”
(young people not in education, employment or training) or Narita Rikon (a
shotgun wedding) are in the Japanese wedding, the idea of a “bachelor party” is
curiously missing. America, for some reason, sells the idea of a huge party to
celebrate the end of one’s bachelorhood before getting married, and just to
allow gender equality in wasting a grandiose amount of money for silly
activities, there’s also developed the idea of a “bachelorette party.” (Much
like blackjack and complimentary rooms, I feel like bachelor parties were
organically a scam perpetuated by Las Vegas, or some other party society.
(Amazingly, Nashville is a huge scene for bachelorette parties).
Alas, I participated in a bachelor party this weekend with 5
of my closest friends. We started off with some “pre-gaming,” which when
everyone in the party is over 30 like it was for us, we just sat around at my
apartment at a table drinking and talking about the good old times, without
energy to get up and move around or do anything youthfully crazy. We then went
to an assortment of establishments in Los Angeles that served alcohol to imbibe
ourselves, on top of the alcohol that we had already consumed. Between that we
are able to indulge in pre-planned activities like “L.A. Horror Escape Room”
(Got out of another one! Now 2 for 3 success rate in escape rooms!) and going
to a video arcade (that served alcohol) to beat the Simpsons arcade game (a
20-year long term dream of mine to beat the game! The final boss is surprise!
Mr. Burns), followed by going to just a normal bar with alcohol. Suffice it to
say, everywhere we went we had alcohol, despite my pleas to take it easy on the
alcohol. I seriously challenge the premise of “alcohol makes everything better”
(perpetuated by the alcohol industry I imagine, which is my 2nd on
my list of likely culprits for wasteful spending.
All in all, I enjoyed the night, I enjoyed the camaraderie
of my fellow man, and even challenged myself intellectually with escape room
and video games. But did it have to involve so much alcohol?
Fantasize on,
Robert Yan
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