Witnessing a Chinese wedding is quite interesting. First off, there is no religious significance attached to it. Most Chinese people are superstitious but not really religious. Let's explore further:

A Chinese wedding consists of many parts. First the bride and groom go to a photo studio to take many many photos with various costumes. Then the photos get photoshopped into a book and a few framed poster-sized photos are also made to hang over the bed (kinda cheesy, but interesting). This happens months before the actual wedding.

The actual wedding is broken up into two days. The day before the first day, we decorate my brother-in-law's home with paper-cutouts and clean up the place. The first day of the wedding is the groom's day. The day consists of:

The cars arrive at the groom's home. The cars are decorated with red balloons. Interestingly the number and type of car is very important. The more cars that are used the better (to show off how rich the groom's family is). We had 6 cars total. 1 limo for the bride and groom and 5 black Audis. Once the cars are decorated, fireworks are set off before the groom comes out of his home and while he enters the "flower car" so called because it is decorated with plastic flowers (no real flowers were hurt in this or most other Chinese weddings...too expensive).

Once on the road, it's a big deal to follow each other to the bride's home to pick her up. The cars sometimes have a hard time following each other because no one here really follows the rules (pedestrians and bicyclists basically ignore the stop lights and cross whenever they feel like it...cars rarely stay in lanes and cutting off other cars is sort of a sport here). The cars in the wedding party even try to cut each other off...not out of need I think, but out of habit.

Once we arrive at the bride's home, more fireworks. Everyone goes inside to meet the bride's family. The bride is sitting on a red quilt in her white wedding dress on the bed. The bed is completely red, the lucky color in Chinese culture. The groom enters the room and gives the bride flowers (the only live flowers used in the whole wedding). The two exchange the usual cliches ("I will love you forever" and "you are my only one", etc). Some people are paying attention at this point while most are in the living room smoking and chatting (almost every man here smokes...it's like the polar opposite of California). There are a few ceremonial things that do happen at the bride's home. First, the groom must eat "special" JiaoZi (Gyoza/dumplings) that the bride's family makes. They are special because they have terrible tastes. One is very spicy, one is very stinky, one is super sour, and one is normal. It's kind of like the family is playing a trick on him to test his will. It's all in good fun though. Another ceremonial thing that happens is the groom goes into the bedroom and puts red shoes onto the bride. Then it is up to the groom's family members to steal the shoes. I got one of XueMei's shoes (Xuemei is my new sister-in-law)! Since the bride has no shoes, she must be carried from now until the groom can get the shoes back (this is done later at the groom's home). Another ceremonial thing is that a member of the groom's family is supposed to steal 2 pairs of red chopsticks and a pair of shot glasses from the bride's home and bring it back to the groom's home. I was hazy on why this happens, but I just stuffed the trinkets in my pocket. Another interesting thing was the cutting of the meat. We brought with us to the bride's home a large slab of meat with the skin on. The father cut the skin off the meat to symbolize the loss of his daughter.

After a little while of everyone hanging out, fireworks go off outside....time to go. Everyone grabs their stuff and piles into the cars. Back to the groom's house.

Unfortunately, my brother-in-law lives on the 6th floor of a building with no elevator. Most people are pretty winded by the time they get to his place, but he had to carry XueMei up the stairs (remember, she doesn't have shoes since I jacked them). By the time we has at the top, he was near death as XueMei was on his back and accidentally choking him.

After arriving at home, more hanging out occurred. XueMei was put on her red quilt on the bed yet again (all red of course). My brother-in-law traded me some candy for the shoes so I gave them back to him. There were more cermonial things happenning although most folks just chit-chatted and smoked in the living room and didn't pay attention. Hongyun brought XueMei a red bowl filled with water with which XueMei washed her hands and dried them on a red towel. Hongyun's mother brought XueMei a small bowl of noodles of which XueMei ate some.

Then we headed off to lunch. There weren't that many folks so we only had two tables. A small ceremony in which XueMei calls Hongyun's parents "Mom" and "Dad" as if they were her own parents. This part actually has a very deep meaning. XueMei started crying (I took them for tears of joy). Hongyun says at this point, the bride has mixed feelings. On the one hand, she is happy to be joining a new family and is grateful to Hongyun's parents for everything they've done (namely a newly decorated house for her and her new husband to live in and furniture). On the other hand she is sad that she has to call someone new mom and dad. In old times, the wife would become part of the husband's family and leave her family behind (usually due to distance and a sense of duty to her new husband). This doesn't happen anymore, but coneceptually it is still significant for the bride.

The rest of the lunch is as you would expect, lots of toasting and the like. The interesting part of lunch is the food. It just keeps coming and gets stacked on top of each other. Chinese wait staff are experts in stacking plates so that everything fits and looks like there is a ton of food (yet another display of wealth).

The day ends with the bride's family leaving first...the grooms family stays behinds and chills out a little before heading out.

At this point, I wasn't feeling too hot (I've been sick for most of the time I've been here. Not really sick, but coughing all of the time. I think it's due to the extreme exposure to second-hand smoke and air pollution that I'm just not used to.

We head home to get some rest. Later, we go out with my brother-in-law and sister-in-law. They wanted to thank us for video taping and photographing the event. We went to eat some interesting Chinese food and ended up at a karaoke place.

After a little while, we headed home and I crashed out quite quickly (just like I'm about to do now as I'm dead tired)....more later (so much to write about).

Notes to self: (Waitress story, Taxi driver story, street vendors)