A few weeks ago, I went to two Chá Bars. I know must be wondering what is Chá Bar so let me explain. The direct translation for this phase is tea bar, but this has nothing to do with tea or a bar. Chá Bar is the name given to the equivalent of our engagement, bachelorette or bachelor party. I had the honor of attending two of these types of parties. One was suppose was a bachelorette party and the other was an engagement party. These parties were for one of my friends who will be getting married in January. She is a teacher at IABC.
The bachelorette party was organized by several of the female students of my friend and two other teachers. The students wanted to celebrate with their teacher and wanted give her gifts, because many of them will not be attending the wedding. Off course, I was very curious to see what type of party this was going to be, because the students’ ages ranged from 14-18 years.
This party was nothing I imagined. The party was not a time to celebrate the upcoming marriage but rather a time for the bride to make a fool of herself. Everyone is expected to bring a wrapped gift. I was surprised at the type of gifts the bride-to-be received. The gifts were household items nothing really personal. I thought household items were the things you would give as wedding presents. I was beginning to wonder what the couple would get as wedding gifts. Anyways, the bride-to-be had to guess what each of the gifts was and if she was wrong they would do different things to her to make her look ridiculous. For example they painted her face with various colors and gave her very horrible make up. They also dressed her up in men clothes to resemble her fiancé also making fun of him in the process.
When she has finished opening her presents and the students were finished dressing her up and painting her face as a clown, she had to do these dances which I assume were dances from songs kids usually sing. After she finished acting as a clown in her house, they escorted her to the school campus. It was dinner time and she went to cafeteria and she walked around the cafeteria looking as a clown. I must say this party was different and a little of a shock to me. I am not fan of the fact that people made fun of the bride-to-be and that she also enjoyed it! It should be a happy time not a time of ridicule but I’m in a different culture so I have to learn to appreciate the differences.
The engagement party I thought would be different but it was not at all. I was all about making fun of the couple as a whole. This was another culture shock. This party was very similar to the previous party. The couple was blindfolded and was given 5 seconds to feel each gift and then guess what it was and who had given it. If they did not guess the gift or the name of the giver correctly, the gift giver had an opportunity to either paint both the faces of the bride and groom to be or choose some ridiculous article of clothing for them each to wear. Some of the things done to bride and groom to be, I admit were funny but I just can’t get over the fact that the entire party was about to make fun of the couple.
The ironic thing about the guessing of the gift and giver was that, the bride-to-be was the one who had put all the gifts on the table when the guests arrived. Also, on the invitation for the party, you were asked to bring a specific gift. The other thing about gift aspect of the party was that you were sort of obligated to bring a gift because, couple during the game called almost everyone’s name in the process of finding the gift giver. If you had not brought a gift and they kept calling your name saying it was gift and it was never your gift, it would look bad. That was what sort of happened to me. For several gifts in a row, they kept saying the gift they kept saying that the gift they were opening was mine because I had not claimed to be the giver of any of the gifts that were already open. On top of that several of the other guests started to ask me which of the gifts was mine and whether the gift that was being opened was my gift. I was just glad when they finally opened my gift because I felt like I was on a hot seat.
In all honesty I was not planning to bring a gift because I was told about the party on Wednesday when it was suppose to be the following Sunday. I had been sick with a cold and had no ride to go to
I guess different cultures celebrate engagements in different ways. The party was a happy event but to me it did not seem to be a time to celebrate the upcoming event or the fact that the couple had made the decision to get married. I felt like it was like mocking the couple. One thing that was surprising was that the party was filled with married people and not one of them offered any word of advice to this couple. Probably that will happen at the wedding at the reception. I received an informal invitation to the wedding so I might be going and I will let you know.
Thanks for taking the time to read my blog.
