Family, culture, and celebration
Introduction
A Hong Kong wedding is fun to watch, wonderful to taste, enough to fill your stomach, but expensive to take part in. From the 1960s through the 1980s, Hong Kong was highly westernized. Among educated families, marrying for love was widely accepted, although arranged marriages remained common. It was very common for engaged couples to have a great glamourous wedding to celebrate their very first time, to show off their wealth and to please the bride's parents.
To get the engagement, the grooms had to ask the bride's father or guardian for acceptance of marriage. If the answer was yes, the groom started to prepare for the engagement ceremony. The financial burden began.
Engagement
The formal presentation of betrothal gifts is called 過大禮 (gwo daaih láih). Months beforehand, the groom’s family received a list setting out the requested gifts. This exchange belonged to the traditional wedding formalities known as 三書六禮 (sāam syū luhk láih, “three letters and six rites”). The groom’s parents usually agreed if the requests were reasonable and affordable. If the families could not agree, however, the marriage might be called off.
Once an agreement was reached, representatives of the groom’s family carried the gifts to the bride’s family. They might include gold and silver jewelry, money or stocks, traditional wedding cakes, and other auspicious gifts chosen by the families.
Wedding Cakes and the Bride’s Gifts
Traditional Chinese wedding cakes are crisp, flaky pastries, with thin colorful layers surrounding fillings such as lotus-seed paste, red- or mung-bean paste, assorted fruit, or winter-melon strips with sesame seeds.
The bride kept the jewelry, while her parents commonly retained other gifts and money. Families might say, “We are not selling our daughter; we are only marrying her off.” The cakes arrived in round lacquered wooden boxes and were shared with relatives along with formal red-and-gold invitations. Modern couples sometimes enclosed bakery coupons instead, redeemable for Western pastries. I like both kinds.
Because the bride often moved into her husband’s family home, she prepared personal and ceremonial items for the wedding room:
- jewelry for security in difficult times;
- blankets embroidered with phoenix and dragon designs;
- a Western white gown and a red-and-gold 長衫 (chèuhng sàam); and
- new dinnerware and tea sets.
The Wedding Day
The bride rarely got enough rest before the big day. At sunrise, her mother prepared wine and offerings for the ancestors and prayed for her daughter’s happiness. Incense and long candles filled the home with fragrance.
The bride put on her Western wedding gown and veil, often rented for the day. When the groom’s party arrived, the bridesmaids opened the chained door only a crack and began a playful negotiation. The groom’s attendants offered money in a red envelope, and the bargaining could continue for half an hour before the door opened.
The bride’s father took her hand, walked her out, and formally presented her to the groom. he ceremony began in the bride's house. The couple knelt and served tea to each of her parents, Then, the bride's parents would give the bride a pair ok 24 caret solid gold bangels. Some of them were shaped like the dragon and phoenix. A pearl necklace set, or a gold chain with a silk plaque scarved with some good wishes like 福 (fūk, “good fortune”) or the double-happiness symbol 囍 (séung héi).
Interestingly, the bridal car was gaudily decorated. A set of wedding plastic dolls were put in the middle of the front hood and tied down by plain white silk ribbons. Some were decorated with real flower petals or silk flowers above the whole car. It was well dressed for the bride. Usually, they rented a nice limousine, a Mercedes-Benz or BMW.
This car transported the bridal party to the Hong Kong city hall where their legal ceremony took place. Surprisingly, some of them could get married at the church, even if they were not Christian.
These were the popular westernized ceremonies for a Hong Kong wedding. The most popular church for weddings was the one on Caine Rd., the Roman Catholic Cathedral.
Besides, it was very common for a bride and a groom to have their perfect wedding pictures at a studio. They preferred to have a perfect studio image hung on the wall instead of some imperfect real figures made by a amateur photographer during the wedding itself.
After the portraits were taken, the groom possessed his bride and he took her home. At his home, his parents and relatives would sit up and wait for their new member to come, to present a cup of tea for her recognition. Before the bride walked on the premises, an old match-maker or an old maid, would sprinkle some uncooked raw rice on her head and some rose petals. Some traditional families would even make her jump across a urn of burning golden papers. Usually, the bride would go inside her wedding room. She changed her ' west' to 'east' look and came out with a golden embroderied dress with red background top and a red skirt. She would wear a pair of high-heeled red shoes or a pair of traditional red cloth embroderied kung-Fu shoes. She carried a red silk handerchief in her hand. A beautiful full-bloom seasonal flower would be pinned on her top close to her bosum. Her hair would be bundled up in a bun with a lot of gold pin, and hair accessories. It was quite common to rent a chinese wedding gown for both brides and grooms, (see picture), but I have never been to a wedding at which the groom had dressed in chinese costume. They thought those were uneconomical and not modernized. Poor man! They have to change to satisfy his bride and her family. No more excess money for himself to show. The groom wore a suit for a whole day. However, the bride commonly changed three times or wore 3 sets of clothes for her wedding day.
Ceremony for the Groom's Family
The bride was traditionally classified as a possession of the groom. Therefore, when she was brought home, she needed to show respect to his family by presenting tea. Another tea ceremony. Both parents would sit in high "power" chairs in the front parlor. The bride and the groom walked to them and knelt down and bowed three times. An old maid handed the bride and the groom cups of tea and they had to present to the parents. The mother-in-law would make a lovely wish, if fortunately, to her and gave her some jewelry like golden bangles, a watch, some earrings, rings, some treasures. She got from her in-law and belonged to the family and etc. Of course, an old maid would serve them all some lotus seeds 蓮子 (lìhn jí, lotus seeds), which wished them to have a son in the future.
The Banquet
By late afternoon, the couple and both families assembled at the restaurant. A large red 囍 sign and the two family names greeted arriving guests. Relatives brought red envelopes containing cash, or gold jewelry for the bride. Before dinner, one of the most popular entertainments was mahjong. Soon the room filled with the clatter of tiles, laughter, conversation, and children’s voices.
A common early dish was 肉絲麵 (yuhk sī mihn, noodles with shredded pork). Around eight o’clock, the formal banquet began.It was traditionally at least nine courses, not sevenm nor ten. Seven was used for mourning weeks. Ten was not even lucky. Nine courses is the right number for a wedding banquet.
After a course of shark-fin soup, the bride excused herself and went to change her traditional gown to a modern outfit, which would show her figure and appeared very westernized. Then the couples would have a glass of liquor, followed by the best man who carried a bottle of VO brandy, or Johnny Walker. The maid of honor would join him, and the married couple would go to each table to thank the attendants, and receive a small toast. Those playful friends and relatives, however, would keep the toasts going at each table, cruelly making the groom and the bride drunk. They made them to do games like :
- trying to eat an apple with their mouth, but hands free
- kisses
- rock-paper-scissors
After a good meal and a tiresome day, the bride was exhausted. Traditionally, the bride was kept in her room and ate with her half-way drunk husband after he finished his social duties outside. The latter was better for the bride physically. Hong Kong people combined two cultures 'East and West' together at their wedding, and made the brides tired earlier.
The next day, the bride was trained to take her in-law role, and set up her very first ceremony to the ancestors of her husband family. In the afternoon she would go back to her parents' home for a short visit and had a dinner there. It should be the third day event, but the people of Hong Kong liked to make it simple and matched with their leaves from work.
A Personal Reflection
Can people throw away this expensive and unaffordable wedding tradition show? It hurts and is meaningless. People in Hong Kong still practice this wedding show time - a glamorous reception of 50 tables at 12 per table, with a banquet of 9 courses of food. A poor groom grieves for his financial debt after the wedding. This burden on the groom was traditionally set to pay back the bride's parent for raising his bride, the property of the groom. However, today, the men of Hong Kong generally lack the stimulation to get married earlier than 30 because of the burden of saving for this wedding reception, honeymoon, and future home, as well as a a nice sum to the bride's family. It sounds fair and beautiful to have a big wedding, but what do you think about his years of savings being used up in just one day on :
- a grand banquet of 9 courses
- a party of 50 tables at least
- a show time for the bride
In some families, the in-laws insist on following ritual and traditional customs. They make the bride to kneel in front of the one who is younger than her, but have a higher or same level at the family tree. She has no feeling and no heart on this matter, but she believes she ought to follow just for show and obtain a compliment from the audience that she is well prepared by her family.
Another attackable practice in the oriental wedding is a burden on those whom are invited. Nowadays, the market price for a red pocket cash is US$50 for each attendant about HK$500 per person. It is very popular in America among those Vietnamese, mainland Chinese,and Taiwanese communities. For those closest relatives and family, they need to give the bride real gold items like 24k or 22k. Buying expensive gold and giving it to the bride who will be my cousin's wife, I feel overdoes it, unless she is my dear friend. Normally, she is the character of a stranger to the male family.
This kind of showing of wealth behavior should have been reformed and eliminated by the revolution. However, it exists and elaborates well in Oriental-American societies. Those traditional rites could survive if the parties involved could enjoy some happiness and peace from them. To a Catholic, marriage is a unity of two people and is a sacrament and celebration for their new beginning."Love and Happiness do not need money to prove."
