2005-06-15 - 3:33 p.m.
In Turkmenistan, the idea of toasting is very important at celebrations, most importantly at weddings. Celebration for the joining of two lives (in which one of the lives paid a “bride price” for the other life! Sexy! Romantic!) is a raucous, unpleasant occasion for every party involved, despite what anyone might say. The music is loud, the food is unpleasant, and the dancing is apathetic at best; most obnoxious at Turkmen weddings is the gigantic late 1980s era video-camera that they always cart out with a gigantic headlight attached to film the slow, boring proceedings. They're always drunkenly swinging it around in your face and burning out your retinas with the sheer candlepower of the light.
When it comes to toasts, a good proportion of the guests are expected to make a toast to the lucky bought bride and paying groom. But don’t be fooled! This isn’t an American toast where someone politely dings the side of their water glass with a spoon and people quietly stop their conversations and listen as the groom’s old football buddy stands up and makes a vaguely inappropriate but humorous nonetheless speech that recounts some stories of their hay-day together and boy, hasn’t the groom changed since he met the beautiful bride. Nay. The people are expected to come to the front of the room and scream their toast into a poorly working microphone that squeals and almost always has the echo feature purposefully turned on—as if the toasts are so good, they are reverberating not only through the halls of the restaurant but through the halls of time as well.
When it comes to the content of the toast, they are very rarely ever personal or interesting, as evidenced by the fact that people always ask me to give a toast to people I’ve never seen before. The general structure of the toast is by saying a beginning thank you for the good meal and proceeding with a series of “bolsun” phrases, “bolsun” meaning “may there be” in Turkmen. For example, “yash bolsun” means “May there be years”; Turkmen people never say the quality of the kind of years they’re wishing on you—they’re just hoping that you have them, despite the misery that they might be filled with. Turkmen toasts are filled with the same five to ten things they wish upon you—happiness, money, health, children, years, and so on.
One time at my sister’s birthday party at our house, I decided to mix it up and try a little humor. Of course, right? After I tell her about how much I’m happy she’s my little sister and how she always makes me laugh, I start the bolsuns: “Happiness bolsun, years bolsun, health bolsun…” Then I take a hard shift to the left. “Ice cream bolsun, baby chicks bolsun, old Turkmen women bolsun…” At this point, I looked across at my host mother as she had a look of horror and confusion on her face. Turkmen? Don’t really like when you try and make jokes during one of their traditions. Thankfully, my family has caught onto the “ice cream bolsun, baby chicks bolsun, old Turkmen women” and now do it during all of our celebrations in our house.
When it comes to toasting at a wedding, I have a fantasy situation that would just blow the collective Turkmen wedding mind. So I’m at the front of the room, echoey microphone in my hand, big sweaty spotlight attached the gigantic rig of the video camera all in my face. I start by thanking the bride and groom and by telling them how great the food is. Everyone would have politely laughed if it wasn’t for the fact that no one in the room can understand my words through the echoness of it. I’m okay with it. Then I start the bolsuns: “Happiness bolsun, many years of marriage bolsun, babies bolsun…” then I get real close to the microphone and get a look of confusion on my face. “Aretha Franklin...bolsun?”
Just then. The doors to the restaurant fly open and a gigantic moving platform starts seeping into the room. You hear a bass guitar do a riff and some drums begin to kick in. The wedding guests wake up from their boredom daze and look around. What’s going on? What is that?
Then you hear it burst out from the dark form on the platform. “Chain chain chain...” Shit. There she is. Aretha Franklin, huge and swaying in a gigantic sparkly red dress, already sweating into the microphone ten seconds into the song. “Chain chain chain…Salaam, Dashoguz! Siz nahili?” The Turkmen people are on their feet. They’re screaming. Aretha is just going insane on the microphone. “YOU TOLD ME TO LEAVE YOU ALONE! MY FATHER SAYS COME ON HOME!” The background singers are step-touching as if they never had to take lessons. The platform circles around and around the fountain a few times while the band and Aretha rocks Chain of Fools. A couple of Turkmen women throw themselves in front of the platform. “I’M WELDED TO YOUR…CHAIN CHAIN CHAIN!” As the last strains of the song leave with the exiting platform, Aretha raises one elephantine arm in the air and proclaims, “Thank you—Sag bolung—Dashoguz! Y’all have a good night! Sag bol!”
The room falls silent. The people return to staring unhappily at the half-eaten plates of Korean carrot salad. And I triumphantly make my way back to my seat. Imaginig this is basically the only thing that makes sitting through weddings somewhat pleasant for me.
