Starting two years ago when I decided to come to China more people than expected would say things like, “I bet you’ll find some Chinese girl and get married over there.” If these people would have seen the wedding ceremonies that I’ve attended these past couple of months they would not even jokingly say that anymore because the groom definitely gets the short end of the stick.
The first and third weddings I went to was with a friend’s family that are part of the Hui minority group so this type of ceremony is not very common. There was a banquet during the day where a ton of people came and ate but later on in the evening some family members got black shoe polish and chains together. They grabbed the groom (and in one case the best man as well), painted their faces with the shoe polish, wrapped chains around their necks and locked them up outside on the sidewalk for everybody to see. This drew a crowd and soon people were circling around hurling insults, and sometimes objects, at the poor groom. He just took it too, a defeated but determined look in his eye, waiting for midnight when he could pay the people that locked him up for the keys to free himself. While all this was going on the guests, those not abusing the groom, continued eating food that the groom’s family made.
They even put flowers in their hair.
This just looks uncomfortable
A friend took some video of the whole event.
More pictures of these weddings here and here.
The second wedding I went to was much more in line with the “traditional” way of Chinese weddings. It was held in a big hotel with a ton of tables, I heard over 60, with 10 people at each table. There was a ceremony that included indoor fireworks and the groom singing a sappy love song to his bride. An emcee was hired to keep up the 热闹 （re nao; lively, excitement-filled) atmosphere so he sang songs and had the bride and groom play games with their families. Then came time for the toasting. The bride and groom go around to every table to thank them for coming. Each table had a bottle of strong liquor (that was replaced at our table when the first one was emptied), a bottle of wine, and a case of beer. I was sitting at a table with a bunch of the groom’s college buddies and they got him to drink a lot – he wasn’t doing too much complaining either. In the picture below that glass is half-full with 50+% liquor.
Obviously there’s no way he could have done that at each of the 60 tables so I’m not sure how he managed those but it was no surprise to me when I heard he didn’t make it much longer after the ceremony before calling it a night at around 3pm.
More pictures of this wedding, and of me driving motorcycles, here.
To be fair, I’m sure there have been some wonderful weddings in China where the groom has not been abused or expected to get slooshed off their rocker but I haven’t attended any of those so we’re going with what we know here.
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