Operation AC

AstroBanana had their 安床 (an chuang) and 过大礼 (guo da li) on 27 September 2009. According to Long Shifu, the auspicious timings for AstroBanana were 7 a.m. to 9 a.m. and 11 a.m. to 1 p.m., so Eric Banana woke up at 6 plus for the 安床 ritual. He placed the new mattress on the bedframe and covered it with a new red bedsheet. Basically, the ritual is to bless the nuptial bed and entails placing four different types of fruits (one each) on the four corners of the bed, with a pineapple, a huat kueh (read: 发糕) and an ang pow (read: red packet) containing $12, $120 or $1,200 in the centre of the bed.

Actually, there is strictly no single standard operating procedure for the 安床 ritual. If you ask 10 different people, you are likely to get 10 different answers. That is, assuming their answers are not "I don't know". In some wedding forums, the discussion gets really weird though, as Eric Banana observed. Like getting a boy to roll on the nuptial bed. One extreme version suggests getting the boy to pee on the nuptial bed *hmmm* - and the bride-to-be was exclaiming she doesn't want to sleep on an urine-stained bed. Erm, okay.. Nobody does :p Another bride-to-be related about hearing from some folks that the ritual involves putting a rooster and a hen under the nuptial bed and seeing which one comes out first - this will determine the sex of the couple's first-born child. The bewildered gal had a problem - her bed was a storage bed so the chicken ain't walking out anytime soon.

Eric Banana speculates that some skewed versions of this ritual boil down to some couples (and their parents) wanting to give birth to a boy for their first-born child. Some are a result of deeply-rooted customs and beliefs. Some are a figment of the imagination of people who have either nothing or nothing better to do.

Thankfully, Astro Girl was very clear-headed. She told Eric Banana, "You already paid good money to consult a professional. Just follow what he says and get it over and done with. Why you want to bother with what people write in the forums?" To that, Eric Banana can only meekly agree - that's why she's The Wife yah? Who in the right mind would want to go against the mistress of the Banana household??