Sharp Dressed Man

Ho who's dat sharp dressed buggah over there on the right eh? I got ZZtop's "Sharp Dressed Man" playing background in my head right now.

Not bad eh? She's way more photogenic then I am obviously. That's the ballroom where we had our Hong Kong wedding. There's a very scenic view of Kowloon Bay off to the right. I'll update more when I have time.

Hong Kong Weddings

OK, so I'm back. Land of the clear weather, cool tradewinds, and bad traffic.

Let me describe to you the Chinese Wedding experience. I enjoyed myself and it was fun meeting all of my fiancee's friends and relatives, but I'm totally the fish out of water there. I've never even attended a Chinese wedding before...now I'm the center of attention in one. It was weird...many times that night I felt like I was in some weird dream. I think the MC called me on stage a couple times and I was totally oblivious...."OH, you mean ME?" Duh, like who else was getting married?

So anyway, like I had mentioned before, this thing turned into a HUGE thing for my fiancee's family. Since they couldn't come all this way to our ceremony here in Hawaii, we figured we'd give them something to remember there. So my fiancee didn't hold anything back and we had everything from the sea food menu, the big boxes of alcohol (everyone really seems to like red wine in HK for some reason) the slideshows, cakes and MCs.

There are a few really unusual things about their customs. As explained, there were at least 5 dress changes that my fiancee did that night. Along with those dresses meant custom hairstyles for each one & matching jewelry. I concede that she did look quite stunning on most of them. Maybe in a dress or two it may not have been my favorite, but most of the other things she wore that night she looked great.

So picture an event where you have to spend about 20 minutes between each dress change in the span of about 4 hours. For each dress, we had to take photos with friends and family. Apparently, having one picture with us was not enough. If they liked the bride's new dress, they were very eager to take another photo with us.

Most of the night was occupied either taking dozens of photos with giant groups of people, or doing tea ceremonies to each of our close relatives. Chinese tea ceremonies aren't as elaborate as the one I pictured from Karate Kid 2 (thank god). They basically involve the couple having to serve tea to each of the relatives who come to the wedding. You take a cup of tea which is served to us on a platter, then one at a time, the groom first addresses the relative in front of us and says in Chinese, "Uncle so-and-so, please drink tea", "Aunt so-and-so, please drink tea". Then the bride does the same thing.

The relative receives the tea, says some kind of blessing back to you and then gives each of the couple a lucky Li Si packet. You say thank you, they go back to dinner and then another relative sits down and you do the same routine again. So a good part of the event I was serving tea to and endless line of aunts and uncles I had just met.

The scary part was that I didn't know their names. In chinese, every aunt and uncle has a name that addresses them specifically depending on a number of things. Whether they come from the mother's side or father's side, how old they are in relation to your mother or father, how old or young they are in relation to you, yadda yadda. You can't just do like we do in Hawaii and call everyone "Braddah", "Uncle" and "Aunty"

So before each relative, Florence and her younger sister would quietly tell me how to address the person in front of me so I could say my part and serve the tea. Well, a couple times I didn't hear them....so I did what every proper groom would do in this situation. I mumbled their names.

"Uncle MMmsmmmemmph, Please drink tea" It seemed to work well enough.

Weddings in HK are also very boisterous. When I had the chance to talk to our MC once, she explained to me that in these types of weddings it's different from the West because the people like to be very noisy. If you can't imagine Chinese people being any noisier then they usually are in the restaurants, well....they can be. There's a lot of alcohol being consumed, a lot of toasting, a lot of participation and cheering. One of the games we had involved the MC going to each of the tables with a decibel meter and challenging them to scream the loudest in the room. "100 years of love, both hearts join as one"

One table screamed so loud one of the champaign glasses broke.

I don't think I've had to be in so many photos in my life. I think by the later part of the night my jaw hurt...my smile probably looked more like a grimace then a smile. I should have just drawn a smile on my face it would have been easier on the lips.

In the end, it was fun. I think everyone enjoyed themselves and I think the both of us was happy when it was over as well. I certainly felt a lot closer to her family after this event. So I'm glad we went through it.

Back to my little grass shack

I'm heading back home. I'll have a few days to recover from jet lag before my fiancee and everyone else starts arriving in town.


How was the big wedding dinner? OH....MY.....GOD. Chinese wedding dinners are certainly interesting. I would best describe it as a mix of a dinner, a fashion show, a yelling match, and an all-day photo shoot.

It'll take a lot longer to describe it in detail, I'll wait till I get back.

Oh, I can't wait to feel WIND again.

Bizarro World

So tomorrow's the "big dinner"...what's technically the 1st official reception of our wedding Chinese style for my fiancee's family here in Hong Kong. This is happening about a week before we all go back to Hawaii for the official ceremony and then smaller dinner reception after that.

Judging from the amount of chaos and running around we've been doing these last few days, tomorrow's dinner may even be more complicated and stressful then the actual events over in Hawaii.

Weddings are super complicated things here in Hong Kong as opposed to back in the States. I'll give you some examples:

1) In addition to my fiancee's white wedding dress, she has a red traditional Chinese dress with the gold frills, and THREE evening gowns to change into during the course of the night. God knows what I'll be doing during those sessions where she has to go and change. Do I sit there at the head table trying to look like I know what I'm doing or do I follow her into the changing room like a lost puppy? I may seem silly going along with her because I'm going to come back out looking exactly the same. On the other hand maybe I'm supposed to go so I can escort her back out?

2) 5 dresses for the night means 5 of everything else. 5 hairstyles, 5 sets of different headwear. 5 sets of matching jewelry. 5 different hues of makeup combinations. For you future grooms out there who have to follow your fiancees into the makup rehearsal...count your blessings. I had to sit through FIVE trials.

3) There are rituals to perform. In western weddings, you know we usually might get cash or maybe even some gifts from the guests right? Well, if you've ever been to any chinese function at all in your life, you know we usually get these little red lucky packets called "li si" (pronounced kind of like "light" without the "t" sound, and "see"). Li Si is a good thing, because you know you're getting lucky money. But what I just discovered is that it's tradition for the couple to give Li Si packets back to people that gave some to you! So half the evening is spent recieving Li Si, and then giving some back again. It's crazy confusing because you have to prepare all these Li Si packets before the wedding and start handing them back out again to the guests during the dinner.

Plus you have to do it a certain way. When you recieve these Li Si, you should always use 2 hands and say thank you a special way. Chinese has 2 forms of saying "thank you". One form is used only when you recieve gifts or cash

3) Then you got the food itself...there's going to be a lot of it. I think we may end up with a 9-course dinner. There's always something for everyone there. Don't worry if you're a picky eater..guarantee there will be regular things such as roasted duck, grilled chicken, steamed fish, soup. Now this is a total "joy luck club" moment, you have to always let the oldest person on the table sample the food first. And then it rotates around the table on the carosel. Sometimes if you sit on the opposite side of the table all night, or you're the youngest one there...you might be shit outta luck because the the dish would be all gone by the time it gets to you. By that point there's maybe a couple of shrimp chips on the plate you can suck on .

4) I have to get up and say this speech to some 130 guests I've never met before nor speak my language. What do I say? I can't even start off with a joke, they probably won't even get it. Anybody out there know any dirty knock knock jokes in Chinese? I'm just going to wing it and ramble on. I'm told the MCs can translate for me. Maybe I'll use nonsense words in my speech just to mess with the MCs? "Eagle feather night fly up pigeon's nest coo-coo co0-coo?"

5) My fiancee's going to be decked out. Picture Queen Amidala with all her fancy gowns and headwear....I think you got a pretty good idea. Honestly, I think it's a bit too much. But even this is a cultural thing. Asian people apparently find ornate and shiney things to be very high fashion. Very opposite to our western style where less is better. So Asian people might look at the fashion that we wear as drab or old fashioned. I heard someone comment that western peole wear "table cloths & window drapes". We might look at Asian fashion and decide they look like little sparkly chickens.

I narrowly escaped. The tux store selection was scary. 3/4ths of the stuff looked like it came out of Prince's winter collection. I luckily found something that was more low key, but even then it has pin-stripes and a ducktail. I feel kinda like someone out of the Godfather movies but thank god I won't be scarred for life with some of those other Liberace suits.

Well, If I think of anything else I've observed here, I'll report back.

Surviving.

After that one hurling incident everything's been fine. I've just been very careful not to eat too much. Which is MUCH more difficult then you might think. Everything tastes so damn good.

Yesterday the 2 of us went out to some nice buffet dinner at this place called "Conrad". All you can eat seafood, grilled meat, deserts... one of the worst places to go when you want to manage your eating, but I managed to enjoy it anyway. Fresh lobster that practically dropped meat out of the shell, fresh sashimi, shrimp, oysters. They had grills outside where you can choose what you want on it and the chefs will grill it for you right there. They had mango crepes, souffles (spelling?), creme boulees, fresh strawberries that you could dip under a rolling chocolate fountain. I shit you not, I was tempted to gourge myself again and risk throwing up another time just to try everything there. But I was a good boy and practiced restraint.

It hasn't all been fun and games. Been visiting relatives...both dead and alive. I visited my grandparent's grave the other day. First time I've been there since I last saw them alive. I did the whole buddist thing with the incense. No idea what I was doing but hopefully if my grandparents are out there listening, I didn't mess up too much.

We managed to prepare another 130+ party favors on this side too. At this point I'm getting really good at making these things. Of course no matter how fast I get, both my mom and my fiancee seem to always outpace me. My clumsy fingers just can't thread the ribbon fast enough.

Hey I never mentioned it took me nearly 48 hours to get here in the first place. Japan Airlines sent us all to a hotel for the night after they found a fuel guage they couldn't fix in time. So I ended up spending my first full day of travel sitting around by myself at Ala Moana Hotel....behind some 400 Japanese people. The next day they finally got me rebooked on another plane out. 8 hours in the air to Japan. a SIX hour layover in Japan, and then finally another 4 hours to get here. What an ordeal. I managed to read a complete novel in that time and worked my way through a bag of jolly rancher candy.

Until next time...

Upchucked

I threw up. Yeah, you heard me, I can't even remember when was the last time I upchucked anything...but my 1st full day in Hong Kong I hurled. How sad huh? I think I underestimated the jet lag. It wasn't the food...the food was delicious and it was mainly home cooking from my future in-laws and my aunt. But somehow I think my digestion is all wack right now. I'm eating when my body thinks I should be sleeping.

So I hate a bit too much last night....then BLAH. So ends my vomit streak.

I felt fine after though hehe.

Beyond that, it's as humid and hot as I expected. I think it's around 82 degrees at night with some humidity factor that's think enough to swim in. And I'm told it gets far worse here. That'ssomething we take for granted in Hawaii...tropical weather is actually not that hot.

OK, I better get back to folding these 130 party favor boxes.

Away

This is it...the BIG trip. As a reminder, I'll be away from work for the next 4 weeks. I leave tomorrow for Hong Kong from June 17 and will be back to work on July 15th. If you're looking for a designer (and you don't mind waiting), please do not hesitate to drop me an email to "[email protected]" and I'll be sure to contact you as soon as I return.

I've stacked up my chips as high as I possibly can at this point. Less then 24 hours I'll be leaving and I haven't even begun packing yet. It's been just like those little Ogres in the old Warcraft game "werk werk werk". That's me...the slaving worker. Nah, I shouldn't complain though, I know I would be stressing a LOT more if I didn't have anything to do in my business.

Now I leave tomorrow and we'll just see how those chips fall. I'll come back to clean up what falls in July and just carry on life with my wife then. Yeah, I can't get used to saying that yet. "Wife" That's heavy heheh.

This first leg up to Hong Kong is the intial phase of what's really a 2-part wedding. My fiancee and I both have a lot of family in HK that cannot make it to our ceremony here in Hawaii. So we're going up there first to have an advance reception for them. It's quite elaborate actually...what initially sprung up as just a "dinner" for family has turned into a big affair with multiple clothing changes, slideshows, games, photographers, etc. It's almost like a complete wedding minus the actual ceremony itself. I don't know what to expect yet... while I speak limited Cantonese, I expect half the time I'll just be doing a lot of smiling and nodding to people I have never met before in my life.

All I can expect, is that it's going to be HOT & HUMID. Especially if I will have to jump into a tux. I'm going to be taking a lot of showers and drinking a lot of liquids. Not a lot of sightseeing this time around so I probably won't be coming back with those types of photos. Just wedding ones. It's going to be pretty bad if I look all wet and drippy in those photos. Disgusting huh? You don't even KNOW until you've been to parts of Asia in the Summer. It's like walking under water...warm thick water.

The 2nd leg of our wedding is back here in Hawaii where my side of the family flock with start arriving in mass. My grandmother, tons of aunts, uncles and cousins. It's a pretty big affair...let's just say a reunion of this magnitude hasn't happened in my family for some 25 years or so. My dad hasn't seen some of my uncles in decades. Can you imagine that? Imagine seeing someone decades later...what do you say? How to you catch up? I'm going to trip out on that.

The wedding here will be nice...it's an evening wedding so hopefully we'll catch some beautiful photography on the beach with the sunset. The dream wedding many people wish for. It should be fun and quite interesting.

What I'm most anticipating that's going to happen here is one of my aunts. I love her to death but she's wacky in the sense that she claims she can talk to angels and read the future on tarot cards. But that's cool...the best part about her is that you can tell her she's "wacky" right up to her face and she'll just laugh it off. That's pretty cool in my book. It's a good way to live life actually. So she tells me a long time ago she's going to come and tap dance for my wedding...I don't know if she's serious or if she's just going to do something wild and insane for my wedding just to embarrass her poor nephew. I anticipate she'll be our entertainment, since we really didn't plan to do anything else but go to eat dinner across the street for our reception.

And then I got my buddy "Big Daddy". I think it will be a funny night no matter what. I'll be keeping the liquor far away from those two. Then again, maybe I should get them liquored up and see how funny the night gets?

Overall, I'll just enjoy it. I got tons of stuff I still need to worry about, but I'm going to just set that aside and just enjoy these next 4 weeks. It only happens once!

I better pack..... let's see, 7 shirts, 2 long pants, 3 shorts, 4 socks, 9 bibadees, 1 oxygen mask, ...

Insane in the brain.

I'm going to try my best not to whine folks. Even I'm getting sick of that.

But this is my only outlet right now, that's the sad thing. I can't bitch to my fiancee right now, she's got her own concerns to worry about there with her final days at work and her move. I can't bitch to my friends...many of them are helping me out a lot with my wedding plans, the last thing I want to do is give them more headache. And I can't bitch to my parents who are all stressed out over the logistics of all my relatives arriving in flocks in another 3 weeks.

So YOU, my silent audience, gets to see how a seemingly calm and collective guy suddenly turns into a formless block of jello over these next coming weeks.

You know how they say, exercising helps take the mind off of stress? Bullshit, here I'm often running and I'm still counting numbers and trying to solve problems in my head.

Sleep? No...I lie down trying to give myself 20 minutes to nap sometimes? 10 minutes later my mind is thinking of work again and I'm wide awake.

Even when I visit the restroom it's like plop plop fizz fizz, oh what a relief it is and whabam I'm back outside working again. I'm like, "Did I even go?"

I'm all wound up! How come?

When the dust settles after the wedding, I gotta certainly evaluate this trend. I wanted to work to live, not live to work. This will have to change.

Pricing and Ethical Standards

Did I mention I buy a lot of books?

So I pick up this one called the "Graphic Artists Guild Handbook: Pricing and Ethical Guidelines". The thing was surprisingly HUGE. It's a big thick book.

Boy I wish I had this 10 years ago. Not only is it like a bible for graphic artists and illustrators, it's a great reference for the general public as well. If you're looking to hire a graphic artist for a company marketing project -- buy this book. I highly recommend it.

It tells both parties what to expect, what questions to ask, how much a typical project might cost, how to handle contracts and disputes, etc etc. All this stuff I had to learn on my own through trial and error.

I've read more then one graphic artist tell every one of their clients to pick up this book before making a commitment on a designer. Now I'm joining that crowd too.

I kind of decided to pick this up in part to give me a base reference how much I should be charging for my print work. I'm pretty familiar with what the comfortable base rate is for web design, but for print work I really had no idea. What did I learn so far? I'm severely undercharging in fact. Of course I can't just use the rates in this book as written in stone, I still have to make my own judgment calls based off of my clients and the local market. But at least I'm not just making up my own prices willy nilly. I have a good client that always jokes I'm too expensive for him...I should go tell him to buy this book? hahah. Nah, he's cool. I'll just do what I can...I think he knows I'm giving him a good deal even though he doesn't say it.

It also gives me some point of reference to address those suckers that stiffed me for money a month back on that logo design I made. From what I could reference in this book...I think it confirms I'm in the right. Of course though, I think it recommends I may have been wiser to have drafted a more comprehensive termination policy. We'll see... I'll look into this more and tackle it after the wedding. This situation is not over yet.

Hard to believe in less then a month now I'll be a married man. Should I be freaked out? There's just too much stuff going on to think about it much. I'm in 2 bands right now, I may train for this year's Honolulu Marathon, I'm planning for the wedding, I got to keep up with my exercising, I have to keep my business running.... EEEP! Have I bitten off more then I can chew?

BJ Logo

London unveiled the logo that will represent the 2012 Olympic Games recently. What does it look like to you?

It's apparently causing quite a bit of ruckus similar to what happened with us here when someone tried to design the UH logo.

One commentary said, "It looks like a cubism picture of a woman with big hair and numerous earings on her knees pleasuring a guy wearing a London t-shirt." Hahah.

I think I agree. It's supposed to be "2012" in there somewhere. I see it....but I think that's a bigger stretch.

What's staggering is that this logo costed close $800,000 US dollars & a whole year to create. And this is what they arrived at.

SERENITY NOW!!!!

I'm in a bit of a panic lately guys. I don't know if this is what you call an anxiety attack? Maybe not that bad yet, I think I usually deal with pressure pretty good. I just focus and do it. But if you were to interrupt me during this period you're going to hear it all. My mother called me late one night in the middle of one of these panic attacks and WHAM...I started talking like a mile a minute and my voice went up a pitch just like a bad Jerry Seinfeld impression.

"Oh my god ma I got this to do and that to do and yadda yadda yadda. I don't know if I can do this and that and this and that....AAAAAAHHH!"

I think it's just the culmination of everything coming down to this now. I'm at the grand finale. This is the month we've been expecting and planning for 2 years. The question is...did I do enough?

I got a big wedding coming up with is drastically going to change my life. I got the wedding itself to worry about. Is everything going to go as planned? Did I think of everything on this side so my fiancee won't give me the evil eye for forgetting something important?

Then I got my business itself. Can I get all these projects done in time before I leave? Did I notify everyone I need to notify that I'm going to be gone? Did I line up enough projects to do once I come back from my wedding? Did I earn enough so that I can absorb not working for the 4 weeks I'm gone? Did I arrange to have all my bills paid?

WHOA! Yeah so it's just been hitting me pretty hard these past couple weeks and I'm trying very hard not to stress out too much but I can't help it sometimes. I know by the time the day arrives and I'm actually seated on the airplane going to Hong Kong, I'll be fine. Because at that point there's nothing I can do and I'm just going to deal with it. But these last 2 weeks leading up to that day is killing me. I'm not getting much sleep, and any waking hours I have I'm just working my butt off. Sometimes this anxiety attack, or whatever you might call it, gets so bad my hands start shaking and I'm constantly pace back and forth across my apartment trying to think of all the things I need to do. Serenity now.

I'm eating poorly I'm ashamed to say. I haven't had the chance to go grocery shopping lately so it's been a diet of drive through fast food for the last week or two. I'm kind of sick of it and a little embarrassed to be rolling up in front of the same drive through person night after night. I can see it in her face "Oh you again?" There's few things more humiliating then a drive-through person starting to recognize you as a frequent customer.

Hey I've been getting salads as much as I can ok? I watched "Super Size Me" I'm trying to avoid turning into a slob before my wedding.

Ho boy, my life is far from dull this year. Pray for me!