|
wedding
podcasts
Chinese people talk about weddings throughout the century
It's
wedding time here. A lucky day (the 5th of the 8th lunar
month) a lucky year (with two 7th Lunar months - to get the lunar
calendar back on track) and a week before the National Day Holiday.
It
seems the National Day Holiday is the most important these days, and
the lucky couples are planning trips to Guilin for their honeymoon.
Marriage seems a drawn out affair these days. The couples I
watched get married this week
have been married for months: officially.
They took their wedding photos months ago, in one of the 'wedding
boutiques' that seem to be everywhere along the high street. A
gruelling nine hour ordeal of make-up, dressing up and soft focus
smiling. Typically couples are photographed in western white
dress and white tuxedo; traditional Chinese garb (with fans and
traditional back-drop); and then traditional Chinese wedding dress:
a red dress for the girl, maybe grinning from a palanquin as well.
The
wedding begins, for me, on a specially commissioned bus-load all on
thier way to the wedding. People do not dress up for weddings,
particularly, and at lucky times of the year like these, there are a
couple of weddings each day - often in the same building.
We
bounce along the roads, winding and hooting through the traffic, and
arrive at Zhao Yang Cheng - the same wedding palace we were at the
day before for another wedding. It is easy to get lost - so
everyone checks with everyone else - floor number 2!
It's
easy to get confused. Each floor hosts a couple of weddings.
Today, ours hosts three weddings and a birthday party.
Apparently it is better to share weddings, because then there's more
people.
At the
doorway each of the couples hands out cigarettes to their guests and
the guests slip them red envelopes - hong bao - with money inside.
'68, 88, or 108,' I was told, but in bigger cities the number starts
at 108, going up in multiples of 100.
We sit
for a long time, waiting for the couple to arrive. They do,
are made to drink cups of wine over each other's shoulders, giving
the impression of hugging - to the delight and embarrassment of the
audience, and then they bow - three times to each other; three times
to thier parents; and three times to the audience.
That's
pretty much it, and about all the hungry host will tolerate.
Dishes are handed out, the same as the previous day's wedding, and
we all tuck in.
One by
one the wedding couple come and toast each table, while a man with a
microphone croons out love songs that guests have paid him to sing:
Honey Sweet. I dreamt I met you. 365 Wishes.
As the
meal begins to end, people begin to pull out crumpled shopping bags
and stash un-opened or half-drunk bottles of beer and spirits;
chopstick uneaten food away for later.
Within
ten minutes the whole room is picked clean of food and drink.
wedding podcasts
Chinese people talk
about weddings throughout the century
|
