Chinese Wedding

My good friend and neighbor Si Jing got married last weekend and was kind enough to invite me to be her bridesmaid. I got to get out of Fuzhou and see the small town where she was from. It was a lot of fun. Stupidly, I forgot to bring my camera! I was hoping to get someone to send me some pictures from the event, but no luck so far. If I do get a hold of some, I suppose I can add them later. Anyways, I am prepared to write a detailed written description. But here is one of Si Jing's professionally-done Engagement pictures, so you can at least see what she looks like!

I learned a great deal about Chinese traditions. Luckily I had a fellow bridesmaid, Si Jing's good friend from Shang Hai, named Su Zhen, to help me at every step, and be my translator.

In olden times, a bride was given away to the groom's family upon marriage so that she no longer belonged to her parents. So they have some interesting rituals revolving around this idea. On the day of the wedding, the groom comes with an entourage early in the morning to the bride's house. To show they love her and don't want her to leave, the bride's family plays "door games," refusing to let the party enter until they have pleaded and offered presents of money. The bride's family then holds a celebration and they honor the parents, etc. Then the groom carries the bride away to his house where they have another celebration.

Nowadays, couples tend to merge Western traditions with Chinese ones, which creates a very unique, day-long ceremony. I suppose all weddings are different, but I will tell you all about his one. There were two parties held at two different restaurants, one in the morning for the bride's family and their friends/guests, and one in the evening for the groom's, each with about 200 people. Because both parties had different attendees, they were almost exactly the same.

Si Jing dressed in a white, western-style wedding dress for the first half of the party. She welcomed the guests, who sat down and started eating the first cold dishes of the meal. Then there was a ceremony, conducted by a person who in Western ceremonies would be called the minister, but who acted more like a game show host, and whose duties were hardly religious. He spoke through a microphone, had the bride (Xin Niang) and groom (Xin Lao) introduce themselves, and prompted clapping from the audience after every sentence.

Then the parents came to front and sat while the couple kneeled before them and offered them tea. As a bridesmaid, I had the special duty of standing at the front of the room and presenting the required cups on a tray for the offspring to present to their parents. Afterwards, I presented the rings for the bride and groom to give to each other. Then they asked me to stand up with the microphone and sing a song. I did one in English and one in Chinese, which they liked. I think everyone got a kick out of having a foreigner at the wedding.

As I said, there were two such identical parties, and for the second ceremony, they didn't want to remove the rings they had already exchanged, so instead they put on new ones. Thus they had two sets of rings!

It was more playful, and more gaudy than I expected. There was a light show and a bubble machine and canisters of pop-up confetti flying everywhere. While we ate, they played techno music, the kind with heavy bass.

Si Jing changed into a red dress after the host excused her, then she ate quickly, and went about the room playing hostess and indulging in party games - drinking games mostly. Chinese people like drink and to toast each other, and many came over to say "cheers" with me. I complied with a cup of orange juice. Xin Lao (the groom) went around giving cigarettes to all the men. Luckily, women in China do not traditionally smoke, so I did not have to refuse any such offerings.

In between parties, they had the Chu Fa (bride-leaving ceremony), where Si Jing was carried away from her parents' house. The bride had to leave at a predetermined "lucky time," 4:10 precisely. Only her bridesmaids occumpanied her. We left the house through a wall of firecrackers that sounded like gun fire. Not much light, but a whole lot of noise.

Someone (I'm not actually sure who, but some parents, I presume) gave the couple a big red sheet with the Chinese symbol for congual bliss, Xi, meaning "double happiness." All around the edges of the gold-rimmed symbol were pasted 100 yuan notes, splayed out in a tight fan. It was quite an impressive sight; probably representing 10,000 or more RMB. The red sheet was held up by some young men in the back of a pickup truck which headed the wedding procession through town. So everyone on the street could point and smile and say to each other: look, someone's getting married!

Si Jing also had to arrive at the groom's house at a special lucky time, 5:00 pm. The caravan of cars actually arrived a few minutes early, so the groom carrying Si Jing on his shoulder had to walk very slowly down the alley. "Three steps forward, two steps back" was the system devised to slow them down, which as you can imagine, was rather cumbersome while holding a full-grown woman. Half way down the alleyway, it was announced that time was upon them, so the groom had to sprint the rest of the way to the house. They set off another string of firecrackers at their heels.

Throughout the day, people were giving out Hong Bao, little red envelopes filled with money. They also gave me several of these envelopes, so that, contrary to expectation, and because my hosts refused to let me pay for the hotel, I actually returned from this trip richer than when I left.