Journal: Double Happiness

A young lady of the Li family
Was beautiful and gracious (ya!)
A young man of the Zhang family
Fell in love with her (yo!)

The first thing that he noticed was
She was beautiful and gracious (ya!)
The second thing he noticed was
She could take care of a home (yo!)

— from the lyrics of "Kangding Love Song"

Chi xijiu, "eat happiness-wine" means to attend a wedding banquet. This word "happiness" appears in several other expressions related to weddings, and a typical wedding decoration is red paper cut into "double happiness", two "happiness" characters joined side-by-side (shown above). On Saturday, I attended not one but two weddings—that's really double happiness!

It all happened very suddenly. I had to go back to Guanting to pick up some things, so I gave my Minhe friend Xiao Hui a phone call to see if he had time to meet up with me. He said he was currently at a friend's wedding in Ping'an (not far from Xining) and invited me to come straight away.

The wedding was at a restaurant, with the wedding guests filling eight tables (all of them in separate rooms). Basically, it looked like an ordinary (albeit very large) meal, except that there were a few special dishes such as a sweet steamed rice pudding with dried fruits and nuts, called "eight treasure rice", and at the start of the meal there had been a plate of dried jujubes on the table (jujube in chinese is zaozi, which sounds like "early son"). Also, when people drank baijiu the number of glasses was always a multiple of two, and even when playing drinking games the forfeit had to be two glasses, not one.

Drinking games are very common in China, and often begin before the food is even on the table. The most common game is huaquan, where two people each hold out between zero and five fingers while simultaneously calling a number, the aim being to guess the total number of fingers showing on both hands. Although it sounds simple it does need some practice, and I still can't do it, although I can play the much easier "little" version. What often happens is that one person will play huaquan with each person at the table in turn. Women can usually talk their way out of it fairly easily though, or can drink tea or soft drink instead of alcohol. Also, a lot of women can't play the "big" version of the game, whereas I've never met a Qinghai man who couldn't! However, unlike the social disapproval of women smoking cigarettes, there is no cultural barrier to women drinking, and I've met more than a few Qinghai women who could drink me under the table.

The bride and groom visited each room in turn, accompanied by the best man and the maid of honour. The bride was wearing a red dress, and the groom a suit. I remember in my chinese class we once learned several set phrases for giving good wishes at a wedding, but I couldn't remember any so I just winged it and wished the bride and groom happiness. Talking with the bride, I'm told, brings one good fortune. I later had the chance to ask both the bride and groom separately how they were feeling that day, and they both said the same thing: tired! The parents of the bride, and the parents of the groom also made their rounds of the tables.

The bride and groom offering alcohol to each of the guests.

Unfortunately, I didn't have a chance to see what happened after the meal was finished. Xiao Hui and I left early and got a lift to Minhe, where another wedding was taking place. Xiao Hui's connection was with the groom's side, a Tu nationality family originally from the Sanchuan region. The bride was Han. I'm not sure whether this wedding had any uniquely Tu features, but it was certainly more typical of the rural wedding customs in this part of China, while the Ping'an wedding was much more a "city" wedding.

When we arrived at the home of the groom's family, it was already quite crowded, and people were busy in the kitchen. We younger folk slipped away into a bedroom to chat (actually, it was the bridal chamber, but since it was only a two bedroom apartment there wasn't anywhere else we could go). Only the groom's friends and family were in the house, and this is a critical difference between this and the Ping'an wedding. The bride would not be fetched until 2 o'clock in the morning (at some weddings it might be arranged for 3 or even 4 o'clock). Exactly what the bride's family were doing at this time, I do not know.

At one point in the evening, I was kindly invited to come and see the newlywed's new home. The apartment and much of the furniture had been bought by the groom's family, in accordance with tradition. We hung up some decorations (including double happinesses), and the sister and sister-in-law of the groom made the bed. The bed should be made by married women who have given birth to sons. Between the mattress and the sheets, they put jujubes, peanuts, dried longan, and sunflower seeds. In chinese, these are zaozi, huasheng, guiyuan, and guazi, and taking one syllable from each word gives zao sheng gui zi, which sounds like "soon give birth to a precious son". They put sweets under the sheets too. These are just ordinary sweets, but when associated with a wedding they are known as "happiness sweets". After a wedding, such sweets are also distributed to friends and work-mates of the couple who didn't attend the wedding itself.

Back at the groom's family's home, the party continued until the appointed time finally arrived. Once again, I was fortunate to have the opportunity to accompany the group who would fetch the bride. The groom and his parents were not part of the group. Led by a decorated car, we headed to the bride's home, which to my surprise turned out to be in a nearby village. The bride comes from a humble background, but she herself is a teacher.

We set off firecrackers at the gate of the large family compound, and then we entered and were welcomed into the house. The bride was in the room next door, but we sat for a while drinking tea and talking to her parents and some other relatives. Then all of a sudden, some women appeared brandishing sticks and started hitting us! Well, in fact they only struck the furniture next to us, but they made a lot of noise and I must admit that I was very startled! It seems that they were reluctant to let the bride leave their family—or at least, that was the meaning behind this custom. When it was time for us to go, the bride was escorted from her room by two female relatives, both crying loudly and bitterly. Several of the bride's family members came back with us, but the bride's parents stayed at home.

Some of the groom's female relatives sing as the bride arrives in the decorated car.

When we arrived back at the groom's family's home, a fire was lit on the ground outside the apartment building and some of the women from the groom's family sung a song to welcome the bride. Once more, firecrackers were set off. After the bride had ascended to the apartment, the most formal part of the wedding was carried out. Standing in front of two red candles (you guessed it, "happiness candles"), a matching pair of flower broaches labelled "bride" and "groom" were pinned on the couple, and then they had to bow four times: once to heaven and earth, once to the groom's parents, once to the other relatives, and finally to each other. Actually, this last bow took several attempts, because the people behind them kept trying to make their heads knock together. Of course everybody laughed, albeit halfheartedly (it's an old gag). Then the windows were flung open while firecrackers were once again set off outside. The red candles continued burning all night—it's unlucky for them to be extinguished even for a moment.

And then something hit me on the head. Somebody was throwing happiness sweets and the four kinds of dried fruits and nuts that I mentioned earlier, and people scrambled to catch them. "Happiness money" was also distributed, a pair of 1 yuan notes for each person. On the bed in the bridal chamber, there was a tub of dried corn kernels, and the wedding guests searched through it to find the five coins hidden inside, each wrapped in red paper.

The bride and groom entered the bridal chamber, inexplicable called "cave room" (dongfang) in chinese, and sat on the edge of the bed. But the bride was still putting on a show of reluctance, and wouldn't turn to face her husband. The groom's family members tried to convince her to turn around, calling her by the appropriate terms like "older brother's wife" (saozi) or "younger sister" (meimei) to indicate that she was now part of the family.

In the dongfang, the groom's sister-in-law comforts the apparently unhappy bride.

The newlyweds spent the rest of the night in the bedroom. They ate dinner there, and some relatives stayed with them. I didn't see what was happening, since only married people are supposed to take part, but I know that usually people play games and make jokes to keep up a lively atmosphere. It's called nao dongfang, "making a commotion in the cave room". In addition, the groom's family is allowed to tease the bride as much as they like for the first three days.

I think it's interesting that the bridal chamber is a focus of the wedding, yet the actual act of consummation cannot occur on the first night. Meanwhile, the party was still going on. Apart from a few people who took naps, everybody stayed awake for the whole night. In the morning they would eat a big meal together. I'm told that there are also some customs that have to be followed at this time, but I had to leave early so I didn't get a chance to see for myself. Which is fortunate, because this article is already very long!

This year, many couples are rushing to get married before the Spring Festival, because the next lunar year is an inauspicious time for marriage. There is a day called lichun ("start of Spring") that is half-way between the Winter solstice and the Spring equinox, and this year it falls on February 4, before the start of the lunar year on February 9. A lunar year with no lichun is superstitiously called a "widow year".

As with my recent description of the funeral that I stumbled upon, this article is by no means a comprehensive description of chinese wedding customs. Customs will vary from place to place, and perhaps there are no two weddings that are exactly alike. Just before the bride arrived, the family were searching for some roses to present to her. They eventually had to settle for plastic ones. The person who ought to have bought the roses protested that she didn't know they were supposed to give the bride flowers!