Chinese Wedding Time！

With school in session again I have suddenly become remarkably busy with unimportant things. As I work my way through the gauntlet of urgent questions about my ability to use chopsticks, or if I do in fact like China, I am still able to find time to have some enjoyable outings. This weekend a close friend of mine got married and I was able to participate in his wedding as a Gui Bin, or VIP （Holla!). Between the slamming of bottles of Champagne, hits off the Opium pipe, and the full body massages that accompany being a Guibin I was able to take an account of the affair (said Guibin experience has been eliminated from the story to respect the privacy of these particular Guibins, as well as maintain the already questionable respectability of this bastards blog.) Checking out the wedding is a great way of getting to know more about life in general in China, it shows off Chinese culture at its festive best.

Theres nothing quite like a Chinese wedding, which you know is coming from the early morning firecrackers that help you to wake up in a cold sweat at 4-6am in the morning, mistaking your bedroom for a battleground. I have had the good fortune of partaking in quite a few weddings since I arrived here, partly because there's alot of Chinese people and partly because of the Chinese wedding's generally open invitation policy. One time I was walking down the street and I ran into a friend of mine. I asked him where he was going, he asked if I had eaten yet (a standard greeting in China, Chi fan le ma?) and upon responding I hadn't he said "I'm on my way to a classmates wedding, let's go!" And just like that I had unexpectedly hopped aboard the Ganbei train to Drunkat1pmville.

But my most recent wedding was the wedding of a close friend, making it more meaningful to me, and I want to go on a tour of the wedding process, showing some of the uniqueness of the ceremony in this region, showing some of the cross cultural similarities, and showing what a good time the whole ceremony can be (for those who are not getting married on that day).

Don't get too close now guys... OK , good spacing, now take it!

An interesting sidenote to this wedding was where it was taking place. It was a small city in Shandong Province called Taier Zhuang, famous for a battle that took place in this town over 60 years ago, during the Second Sino-Japanese War, or what is referred to as the "Anti-Japanese War" in China. This war is remarkably important to understanding modern Chinese culture as there are still bitter feelings of anger and even hatred towards a not completely apologetic Japan over the travesties and humiliations that occured in China during that time. (An informative movie to check out about this war is Nanking , which has a definite western influence, but sometimes that is a good thing given the sensitivity of the events that occured) The building behind me and my two bros in the picture is a museum dedicated to the Anti-Japanese War, built by the Communist party, and was very genuinely interesting and informative(sure there is propaganda, but take a look at USA Today). The only problem was that the tour of the museum had to be done at breakneck pace since we had not known we would be enjoying a tour that day, and had arrived just 1 hour before the ceremony. So our three hour tour was done in 45 minutes and at the end I think all of our heart rates were uncomfortably high, much higher than a "trip for leisure" would expect.

But we made it on time to the wedding facilities, which in China tends to be a large hotel/restaurant/banquet hall. The modern Chinese wedding ceremony has a few parts to it, since it is a mixture of ancient traditions and newer customs, some of which have a western influence. According to tradition women, upon being married, become a part of the grooms family. I mean this in the strictest sense, it means that the woman is literally being "transferred" from her fathers family to the groom's family. From this moment on the bride's family would have very little of any contact with their daughter. This tradition, more than just showing the objectification of women that is standard in traditional patriarchal societies, also helped to develop the idea that bearing a female child is bearing for another family, and helps to partially explain the favoritism towards male offspring that still creepily holds sway in modern China. Since the bride was moving from one house to the other the tradition on wedding day was for a group of men to form a caravan and go to the bride's former residence, and literally carry her from her "virgin" bed to her wedding bed. (if you want to see a great example check out this section of the Zhang Yi Mou film "Red Sorghum") The men carrying the bride would not be the husband himself, but either friends or servants, and the woman would have to keep her head covered at all times with a veil. The veil would continue to cover her face until she was finally brought into the presence of her future husband, and during the ceremony he would remove the veil. (In traditional weddings this was often the first time that the two had ever seen each other.... AWKWARD!)

(SIDENOTE- The reason this would be the first time they met in traditional society is that traditionally couples were made through matchmakers, or negotiations between parents. The children had little say int he matter of their future life partner. In modern China, obviously, this policy no longer exists, though we could also say that the dating scene is not anything like in the United States. The peer/public/familial pressure to get married in China is even more intense than in the US, and so this along with more conservative ideas about sexual relations, leads to alot of 23-27 year olds getting introduced to each other through friends or family members in order to help discuss their compatibility. Not the most romantic ceremony, but it gets the job done. There are still many people who do date and work things out for themselves also, but there is an interesting dynamic of practicality, and of the necessity of geting married in some families.)

The "caravan" arriving

The way that this is played out in modern society is a bit different, and the truth is that alot of younger Chinese don't really know the roots of the wedding traditions here, much like we don't know ours. In a modern Chinese wedding the "caravan" will be a group of black cars, usually Audis or Volkswagens, decked out with flowery decorations. Where the bride will be picked up is based on the selection of the bride and groom, but they will surely end their journey in their new house, where they may already be living, on a newly decorated bed covered in beautiful red adornments. In this house the bride and groom, along with thier closest friends, will do the first part of the ceremony, where the bride and groom show their respects to the gods to their parents and to each other in a series of 3 Kowtows. After finishing this part of the ceremony then the couple will move off to the banquet hall where all of their other closest friends, relatives, some white guy they might have met in the hall at English Corner, and more than a few bastards are waiting for them. This is when things start to get really festive.

The money table for "Red Envelopes"

This particular wedding was an interesting one since they very clearly displayed alot of the different trends in modern Chinese weddings, while also including some very traditional elements. The traditional color of the bridal gown in China is red. But in modern times it is a toss-up as to whether the bride will wear red or white. Sometimes it will be both, as at the ceremony the bride will wear a white gown and then for the banquet a red one. In this wedding the bride did wear the traditional red veil, with a white bridal gown, and the following two videos follow the formal ceremony side of the wedding, which only lasts about 15-20 minutes. The first video is of the entrance of the bride and groom into the banquet hall. The parents of the bride are completely uninvolved, and so the groom walks the bride down the aisle into a much less formal setting than a christian church.

Arriving on the stage They then begin the formal ceremony, where once again, in front of all of these people: They will raise the veil, and then do the ceremonious bows I mentioned before yet again, but this time... it will be spectacular!!!

And be followed by the parents handing over a "red envelope," stuffed with cash to help the young couple on their way(red envelopes are standard at a few chinese celebrations, including the Spring Festival, and are always stuffed with cash). The fireworks are pretty common now at weddings, to go along with the firecrackers you can hear in the video above. All of which leads to the deafening of ear drums and this sort of an environment to be married in...

A new and sexy addition to the ceremony is that of the kiss between the bride and the groom. This would never have taken place in traditional more conservative Chinese ceremonies, and still doesn't take place in many of the ceremonies I have seen, but has become more and more common, and sexy...

And just like that this ceremony was over, and on we move to the baijiu bath that is a Chinese wedding lunch. The parents of the bride and groom first circle around all the tables and invite everyone to take shots(really half shots) of Baijiu, which you will take at least two, since even numbers are lucky, and may take up to eight, or more. Then comes the bride and the groom, again circling the tables and inviting everyone to take shots. This is all added on top of the drinking that takes place at the tables anyway. Obviously this is not required to be done, people can back out of the drinking, and its perfectly accepted that they are disrespectful cowards. Really the drinking it is not forced, even though it is encouraged.

One of the happy suprises of this wedding in particular was the specialty fair of the town of Taier Zhuang that they wished for everyone to try...

Thats right folks, Dog meat and garlic raw garlic cloves!! MMMM it sounds as good as it looks doesn't it? Most people know that in general foreigners have a problem with dog meat, so there was an awkward period when it arrived as they all discussed whether it would be a problem, which I finally told them not to worry about it, since I have had it before, and if am making the choice to eat meat, I don't much seem see the point indiscerning between cows and dogs. I got a response of laughter, which I still don't quite understand, there are so many times I don't make a joke and kill people here.

The style of eating the dog here was a little unique, however (and sexy...maybe?), as you first were to eat a full clove of raw garlic and then eat the meat. Dog's biggest problem is how stringy it is, a pretty unappealing texture. When you combine that with the stench of raw garlic around a room of 8 men drinking rancid liquor you get an idea of why this room and eating style was so damn sexy!

Unfortunately the dog and the baijiu can't last forever and finally the wedding had to come to an end (at like 330 in the afternoon we got done eating, finishing with "food" or a starch product such as bread, rice or noodles, standard style of eating a Chinese meal.) as we all bid our farewells, hopped in our assorted cars and returned home to sleep the afternoon away. Some earlier than others...

Another wedding in the books, yet I'll still be awoken tomorrow morning by the firecrackers signalling yet another few weddings occurring tomorrow.