Peter Gets Married

Peter is the young faculty member who has been given the responsibility of working with me and the other foreign teachers in the English department. Shortly after we met, he invited me to his wedding, along with my fellow foreign teachers, Barbara Burton, Tom Olala and Jim and Kay Tichenor. I was a little hesitant to accept his offer; after all, I’d only met him two weeks before. ‘Come’ he said. ‘Weddings are a most happy event and the more people, the more joy.’ (I also later learned that the Chinese still reckon the relative important of the bride’s and groom’s families by the number of guests each brings to the wedding.)

Unfortunately, I had not packed a suit, nor did I think a Marywood t-shirt would make it as a wedding present (especially because the t-shirts I brought were white, the color of funerals and death). I was quickly reassured by Kay that the guests would dress informally, and a gift of 100 Yuan in a red envelope was all I need provide.

So, about 4:30 pm on Saturday, September 15^th—a most auspicious day—I found myself at a restaurant in the nearby Nankai district of Tianjin. Picking a date is still important in China, and many weddings, as was true of Peter’s, take place near the Harvest Festival in early Fall when the moon is full. The pillars on the restaurant displayed the ‘double happiness’ symbol, virtually always on view at weddings. (There are several explanations of the origins of this symbol, at least one of which involves a diligent scholar who married a village girl—diligent scholars are popular heroes in traditional Chinese culture—as they should be.) Beside the door was an enormous photograph of the bride and groom in their Western wedding clothes taken several months before. A heart shaped string of firecrackers had been laid out on the ground before the front steps. Shortly after we arrived, they were set off to a deafening roar. No demons, we could be assured, would survive such noise.

The bride arrived next in a cavalcade of red cars. Red traditionally represents good luck and is still very common at weddings. (Earlier I had noticed that women guests were provided with a red barrette to put in their hair.)

Peter went to greet his bride, only to be forced by laughing friends to bow deeply to her three times before carrying her into the restaurant. The guests followed and were seated on the left, if members of the groom’s party, and on the right, if the bride’s.

Seemed to me that Peter had done well; the left side was very full. Next restaurant waiters brought candy, several types of seeds, and peanuts (representing the birth of boys and girls). While I struggled to crack sunflower seeds between my teeth, the guests milled about. Various people posed with the bride—her mother-in-law

(once an object of terror to Chinese brides whose household they would soon join), Peter’s foreign colleagues, and young bachelors who believe proximity to the bride will bring them success in their search for brides of their own.

Apparently, we were waiting for the ‘Master of Ceremonies.’ These are often TV or entertainment personalities—the more famous the better. Once he arrived, the bride and groom with ‘bridesmaid’ and ‘best man’ walked up the aisle to stand before him.

The actual marriage had already taken place in a government office when the couple filed their marriage papers with a clerk. The ceremony we were attending would include the exchange of vows, complimentary speeches from family, friends and supervisors and much kidding of the couple. Personal, embarrassing questions are the order of the day—‘when did you first kiss?’ generally produces some titters in the audience and a blush from the young couple. In Peter’s case, a vestige of the traditional tea ceremony was also included as the bride served tea to her parents-in-law.

But the most important part of this celebration was to be the wedding feast. This is traditionally paid for by the groom’s family. It is an important occasion on which they repay their friends and kin for their kindness in the past, and celebrate their son’s future happiness. Many Chinese parents of couples marrying today had to forgo any celebration when they married during the reactionary times of the Cultural Revolution or risk being denounced as counter-revolutionaries. Now they can make up for their hardship with an elaborate celebration for their son and daughter-in-law. (Earlier I had noticed on the restaurant wall a now ironic photograph of Chairman Mao greeting a worker in this restaurant years before—giving the restaurant some continuing prestige in Tianjin.)

While we were assembling in private dining rooms on the second floor, the bride was changing into a second dress (she would later don a third in which she would say farewell to the guests at the end of the meal). We were seated with the Chairman of the English Department and a Chinese member of the departmental faculty. I soon lost track of the number of dishes. They came one after another, in rapid succession. Traditionally, there should be 8 or 12, but I think we had more, perhaps 16.

Duck is commonly served, because ducks mate for life, and indeed we had a fine duck dish. But there was also fried soft-shelled crab, very tender squid, baked fish, pork, jellied meat, corn, deep fried hot peppers with sesame seeds, steamed bread filled with noodles, and, at the end of the meal, soup and fruit. Before we were through, the bride appeared and served 7-Up to each of the guests. (7-Up it turns out is thought to be a lucky drink, because the ‘uh’ in ‘up’ sounds like the Chinese word for luck.) She was now dressed in a more traditional Chinese dress, but not the Qin pao her mother-in-law was wearing. Before leaving, we thanked Peter’s father for his hospitality.

I left well fed and impressed by the remarkable adaptability of Chinese culture. Very old elements of traditional Chinese weddings had been combined with Mao’s secular socialism, and then overlaid with a veneer of popular western wedding traditions—and it all seemed to work.