Since Bloglet is broken (and has been for some time), I plan on hosting my own mailing list software. PHPlist looks promising as it can read RSS feeds and send mail just like Bloglet. I don't want to overload folks with mail, but Bloglet is ridiculous...sometimes it sends update mails, sometimes it doesn't.

Tomorrow I will be in transit, on my way back to the US. I have a 6 hour layover in YVR (Vancouver) with which I will spend my time trying to get online and grab a shower (and doing a lap around the airport for kicks).

See everyone soon.

Ahh...finally a chance to write again. Shanghai was devoid of Internet cafes for some reason (probably the usual government crackdown or something)...our regular places were now gone.

Anyway, I'm in Beijing now at the Hainan Towers hotel on Andingmen DaJie near the Andingmen subway station. I highly recommend this hotel eventhough it is not really near the major tourist attractions as it is very new and has free in-room broadband. Back to Hohhot to continue the wedding story...

The second day of the wedding was the bride's family's turn to bring cars to the groom's house. The bride's family comes with their cars (5 of them this time) with the red balloons (as usual) to pick everyone up from newlywed's home. We cruise over to a hotel restaurant where they bride's family has booked a large banquet hall. There were 15 tables of 10 people or so each I believe. Unfortunately, most of the men were smokers...ugh. What's with this place? It's like smoking is a pasttime or something.

The bride and groom stood in the lobby of the hotel to greet their guests while Hongyun and I situated ourselves in the mostly empty dining hall. Within a half an hour, guests started arriving. What was interesting was that as they entered the ballroom they had to register and give money (usually 100 or 200 yuan...12-25 bucks). In the end, we postulated that the brides father actually made money from the whole affair as he paid no more than 20-50 yuan per person for the food (quite expensive by Chinese standards).

As the wedding starts, we realize that everyone is there to smoke and drink. No one is really paying attention to the entertainment or even the bride and groom. Most of the male guests were just consumed with smoking as many cigarettes (provided free at every table) and drinking as much baijiu (China's native alcohol) as humanly possible in the span of a few hours.

The food starts coming and piling up on the tables again. Most of it is pretty tasty but becomes difficult to eat as the plates are intricately stacked, again as a display of wealth and having plenty.

The bride and the groom as well as the bride's mother and father spent most of the time going to each table and toasting each table. Some tables made the bride and groom play games in order to toast with them. It's kind of a rite of passage. Some games included knocking loose a fake flower hanging on a string and moving a plastic beverage bottle up from the hips to the chest without using their hands. This was a fun part of the wedding in my opinion (but tiring for my brother-in-law and sister-in-law).

People started leaving about 2 hours after the banquet started. Eventually, most guests piled out and the family took a few "photos" for rememberance. I say "photos" because the videographers they hired used their video camera to video each individual standing in a photograph pose...quite curious.

More interesting things about the wedding:

The people hired to do the video were the same folks that one of Hongyun's cousins used for her wedding....the wedding DVD came out almost exactly the same (same graphics, same overlays, same sequence of events, same music, same everything).

The wedding DVD devoted a large percentage of time to the actual car ride and street signs. The videographer seemed obsessed with the cars and streets that were taken to get to various places. Maybe there is some meaning in the path taken to get to each place, but it was not apparent to me.

The title graphics for the wedding DVD was more like a commercial for the videographers (their phone number was listed at least a few times during the title graphic)...screwy.

After we left the banquet venue, we headed home for a much needed break and fresh air.

While I was writing the last post, I uploaded the first set of photos here. Enjoy!

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)

Today, we made the final preparations for the wedding. We went to order flowers for the cars and got some extra decorations for my brother-in-law's home.

Interesting points:

Wedding preparations are made last minute (just like travel arrangements and just about everything else here).

The bride-to-be must sleep at her parents house.

We are renting 6 cars in a display of wealth. The groom's car will be decorated with plastic flowers. The other cars will have two red balloons each.

We have to steal the bride's shoes and give them to the groom in exchange for red envelopes filled with money and candy.

12/18/04 02:44 permalink discuss

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