My blended Chinese wedding
Born and raised in Hong Kong, I grew up in the mixed culture of East and West. Hence, my wedding in Hong Kong was inevitably a blended one. In the fall of 2016, I was invited by Sally’s Place, a senior citizen center located in the Salvation Army building, to talk about my blended Chinese wedding.
I started the talk with my traditional Chinese wedding dress. The fine embroidery is red in color which means luck in Chinese culture. Dragon and phoenix, which symbolize the bride and groom, are stitched on the dress with silver and golden threads. The dress has around 40 years of history and has been passed along my husband’s family. I was told by my mother in law that it has been worn by seven brides. I explained to the audience that it fits to different people thanks to its jacket design and there is a rope on the waist of the dress for adjustment of size.
Chinese wedding has a tight rundown. At 8 am, the groom and the groomsmen came to my home to pick me up. They needed to pass a few challenges set by the bridesmaids. One of my bridesmaids is a yoga instructor so one of the challenges was to ask the guys to do some yoga poses. After the challenges, the groom gave red packets to bridesmaids, which are lucky money.
Tea ceremony began at the bride’s home. There were red dates and lotus seeds in the sweet Chinese tea. The ingredients have significant meaning about bringing good luck to the couple about having babies. In the tea ceremony, senior relatives give gifts to the newly-wed, e.g. gold bracelets, jewelry or red packets.
After the tea ceremony at my home, the group went to the hotel as my husband did not have a home in Hong Kong. We performed tea ceremony for the groom’s side and then had pizza at the hotel room for lunch. I then dressed into my western wedding gown for a photo shoot at the hotel in the afternoon. The nice weather on my wedding day brought us stunning photographs.
The prime time of the Chinese wedding is no doubt the banquet at night. We held our banquet in a Chinese restaurant, which was decorated in a western theme by a decoration company we hired. It is worth mentioning that the bride usually changes into 3 to 5 dresses during the banquet. I would say it is a busy night for the bride. I changed into a golden dress to greet and take photos with the guests before the banquet started. Just like an American wedding, we had cake cutting and toasting in the beginning of our banquet.
Food plays a key role in Chinese wedding banquet. There are 8 or 10 dishes in the banquet which 8 means prosperous and 10 means perfect in China. The first dish is always roasted whole suckling pig as it symbolizes the virginity of the bride. There are a lot of exquisite ingredients in the dishes such as shark’s fin, scallops, sea cucumber and abalone.
Towards the end of the banquet, I changed into a red dress for round-the-hall toasting with the groom and senior members in the family. It is a good time to showcase the gold and jewelry the bride received from the tea ceremony in the morning. When the banquet ended, it was about 11 o’clock in the evening.
A Chinese wedding is so much different from an American one. I am humbled to have the opportunity to share my lovely Chinese wedding with Bloomington senior residents. They seemed to enjoy my presentation and asked a lot of interesting questions. I wish I could share my knowledge and experience with my American fellows again soon.
