How similar the music in the Chinese wedding banquet hall

is to that in the Funeral parlour hall

The fast number of gongs and trumpet fit harmoniously to both

The bride and groom leading their trains of relatives to the conversationless guests

making rounds and rounds of toasts

and the taoist sifu leading his disciples doing their round of dance round a basin of fire

with his wooden sword to break open the gate to hell

and when the slow number is played

and everybody is back to their place

that 's when the sifu can rest in his lotus seat

and the bride and groom can sit and have some eat