Gah!!!

I learned if you are not in charge of something, you’ll get all kind of surprises, uncertainty, irritation, and hearing all kinds of not so nice stories about lots of things, sometimes, even the lamb roasting above the charcoal fire gets the blame.

The moral of the story is - someone has to say something and someone has to take the blame and someone has to get upset and someone has to look good/ugly, it’s the wheel of life… nope… it’s all about controlling.

The good, the bad, and the ugly… haha… classic! And, it’s so Marlboro!!! Someone have to light a cigarette to distress a little, at the same time, looking cool while burning your lungs tissues.

Heck!

Where was I?

Oh… ahem.

So someone has to be in charge, and my advice would be to get the majority to agree on something first.

This… to Asian culture, there’s always a hidden message.

Example (there’s always an example):

“No lah! You decide lah! Whatever is convenient for you…”

The hidden message: I don’t want to get involved in the planning, but you better get it right for me or you’ll never hear the end of it.

So what is the best thing to do?

Make up your mind and set your priority right, say what you need to say. Announce to the world about you plan and reserve a bit of flexibility for you and your love ones.

What can be changed and what can’t be changed solely depending on your needs and want, not the others.

Aih… to achieve your need and your want is not as simple. Because some people will still hope you can achieve their hope and wants too…

Isn’t it obvious I am talking about my wedding?

My mother is not a difficult to please, because most of the time she doesn’t know what she wants.

When I ask her about what to do about the wedding here, the first answer she gave me was: “I don’t know wor… I think we need to discuss with your dad’s brothers.”

Ermmm… I am your daughter and you should know how you want to marry me, right?

So obviously she doesn’t know anything until I decided to arrange what I think is culturally correct and yet not too tiring for us.

For example: as guests of honour, Bride’s family should give brunch or dinner after the big wedding dinner. It’s politically correct and we will look good also.

When I suggested to my mom, casually, her reaction was: “No such law!”

Ermmm…

“What do you mean no such law? It’s manners.”

“No. No such thing. We don’t do that.”

Ha! What is the meaning of giving and taking?

I have to think of something to make us look good, and at the same time I can’t tell Alvin about the “no such law” without any good reason, he will be furious because he also judging it from how his family value how things are done, we will be falling into the “no manners” category.

So I have to pick and drop to smooth things out.

I told Alvin if there’s enough time we’ll try to arrange a brunch or something (since we are paying anyway), as long as the elders don’t get too tired and arrangement of transportation don’t get too complicated.

I told my mom there will be feast before everybody leaves Kuching.

The truth, I’m juggling between “no such law” and “no manners”.

So instead of getting “no such law” – when everybody thinking and value things their way, I might as well split my head into two different channel and deliver the message after careful consideration.

And then I realized two channels is not enough.

I’d sent out itinerary to people we thought who is intelligent enough to understand, three months later, I got a question that gives me headache again.

“So what is going to happen in Kuching ah?”

“I thought I sent you the itinerary?”

Do you know how frustrated I was to explain things over again?

If you are not going to pay attention to what I said/write, why do you care to ask? Because you don’t know how to answer what uncle asked you? Can you just let me handle it while I’m there?

This is when you need to question “who is in charge?”

When you put our family together we’ll get hypertension.

Before anybody panic, I learned to say: “I’ll/I’d put that into consideration.”

Yea! I know I am bad. How can I say things like this about my beloved family?

I finally understand what Sean meant by “it takes some talent for a person to observe, understand, and explain some things without misinterpret it.”

This kind of people is difficult to find.

So, it’s ok if some things gone wrong during an event you organise, just relax and enjoy, nobody will know.

Hahaha… but those people who are involved will know! And you’ll never hear the end of it!

Rule number one - don’t get them involved in anything what so ever, it will evolve into something else.

So, tell them what is going to happen later, that’s when you truly know you are fully in charge ;)