#92 Teaching at Taizhou Teachers College, China (Chinese Weddings in Taizhou)

My time in Taizhou has been made more "colorful" by many invitations to Chinese weddings, especially among the English-staff of our college as well as some of Arthur's friends. The occasions have become wonderful introductions into the changing trends of China's ancient customs, as Western tradions enter and begin to permiate many aspect of China's thousand year old traditions.

As in the United States, weddings are now big business, though, throughout China's history, they have always been expensive occasions, but today at least most modern brides and grooms get to choose their own partners.

The wedding industry in China has developed at an amazing speed in only the last 15 years. The effect of this growth has been a boost to other industries such as the fashion houses, hairdressing, jewellery and gifts, furniture and home appliances, hotels, and tourism. I have researched statistics showing, that about 12 million couples register to marry annually in China, and will spend some 300 billion Yuan, (US$35 billion) on their weddings. These figures are only expected to grow.

It is only recently that young Chinese men and women have stopped having to ask the permission of their superiors in their "danweis" or "work units" to get engaged or married. This had been in part an attempt by the new central-government to stop the forced "early" marriages of the old China, when it was common for a bride to be as young as fourteen.

With the establishment of the new government-system after the founding of the P.R. of China in 1949, the minimum age for getting married or even dating was set at around twenty-five.

During the "Cultural Revolution" (1966-1976), a typical wedding ceremony consisted of the bride and groom standing in front of a portrait of Chairman Mao and reading from Mao's Little Red Book, a book of quotations from Mao's works. The big event lasted only about one or two hours, as sweets and tea were served. There was no formal banquet and weddings remained frugal for decades.

In the 1960's, couples also began to take wedding photos to commemorate the beginning of married life. But unlike the glamour shots taken nowadays, couples donned their best "Mao suits" and sat stiffly together before the camera. Couples would simply hand out some candies, peanuts, and melon-seeds to relatives and friends.

In the 1980's, as China embarked on its opening and reform, people had more money to spend on weddings. There were sayings describing the basic material conditions for getting married: " Three revolving machines and sound," = a sewing machine, a bicycle, a watch, and a radio. "48 legs", which indicated the amount of furniture the newlyweds should own, = a cabinet, a table and chairs, and a bed.

Things are much freer and much easier since China's reform and opening-up drive initiated by the late leader Deng Xiaoping two decades ago. This has not only improved living standards, but also liberalized the ideas of many ordinary Chinese.

Dating is more common now, though at times still secretive, especially among my college-students. It is often impossible to tell who is dating whom, though both may well be in the same class together.

One thing I am unlikely to see is kissing in public; hugging and other "touchy-feely" Western body language is rare, and adults and students often freek out when I attempt to embrace them. There is unlikely to be any touching after the initial handshake when dealing with someone of the opposite sex.

Members of the same sex do touch each other more than in the West. It is common to see young people of the same sex walking along the street or on campus hand in hand, arm in arm, or arms around the shoulder. But in Chinese society this is no more than an expression of friendship, just as it used to be in Southern Europe.

The topic of homosexuality in small cities and the country-side is pretty taboo and there is little discussion, though not illegal in today's China. In larger cities awareness seems to be flourishing, and as in the West, the internet has opened avenues to all possibilities, as China's citizens, especially China's youth, are able to search for someone, with whom they can more closely identify as to feelings and emotions, sentiments they are unlikely to express in public, to friends and classmates, or to their families.

Among my college students, there is still limited enthusiasm when it comes to controversial topics such as AIDS or same-sex marriage, though there are more sustained attempts by the government and the schools to educate the young of the serious dangers of sexual transmitted diseases during a time, when China's young are more open to sexual experimentation.

It is not un-common for me to notice some of my students, especially the boys, returning to class on Monday mornings with their necks saturated with the "battle-scars" of a weekend of love-making. I am told and I notice, that the weekends are a time during which the cheaper hotels around each campus of the many colleges of Taizhou are unusually active and quite busy??

It is almost unheard of to live together before marriage, and that may be in part because of the shortage of accomodations. The rigid rules about premarital sex and living together before marriage are relaxing somewhat, but unmarried mothers are rare, and divorce rates are low, though on the rise.

If a Chinese girl and boy start dating, it is usually assumed that they will get married eventually. What may seem as a casual affair to me is likely to be taken much more seriously by the Chinese, who may expect and hope that, what is for them a "serious" love affair will lead to marriage.

In China's "historical" past, it was the family who chose the partners, and the bride and groom would only see each other on the day of the wedding. Traditionally, the one aim of a girl's life was to get married, and men too had a duty to perpetuate the family line. Before a marriage, a "go-between" or "matchmaker" would be employed to sort out the details.

("Go-betweens" or "matchmakers" are still a part of a wedding arrangement in many marriages, especially in the smaller cities or in the country-side of China.)

When all had been agreed on between the two families, what was often no more than a financial arrangement, the bride, who was often no more than fourteen years old, would be carried from her parents' home through the streets in a sedan chair to the house of her new husband.

No one would see the bride, and usually the sedan chair was "completely" sealed. (There have been cases when the bride had been suffocated from the lack of oxygen entering the sedan chair, though that did not stop the wedding ceremony.)

With the establishment of the Peoples Republic of China in 1949, another ancient tradition was put to an end, that of the man taking concubines, either to give him more children, or simply because he grew bored with his first wife. That custom may have now been replaced by an increase in prostitution, though "not" legal in China.

In Tibet this tradition had worked in the other direction, where one wife had several husbands, usually related to each other.

In the past, a happy marriage was not so common, partly because the husband's mother (the mother-in-law) was often cruel to the new bride. It seems that a mother-in-law's reputation in all countries and continents has been, and still is, of dubious distinction.

Widows in China's past history did not re-marry, since it was thought immoral to marry more than once, and the wife, since her first marriage, was part of and reliant on the good graces of the husband's family, to which she now belonged.

Marriage in today's China is viewed as being for life, "fidelity" is taken for granted, though divorce is possible and spoken about more openly.

Husbands and wives both work and tend to share all the household tasks and child-care, but that is often left to the grand-parents. The child's parents tend to focus on creating a "double-income" to off-set the intrusive costs of the child's education, the expensive health-costs, and the continuous support of their own mother and father into late life.

People all over China feel sorry for someone who is not married, though there is no longer the same social pressure to marry. When a Westerner is asked about his or her family and responds, that he/she might be single and without child, the most common expression from a Chinese will be: "Ohhhh! I am so sorry (for you) !!!!"

In the larger - and medium sized cities, wedding-occasions in today's China are usually arranged in large hotels and restaurants, and become momentous celebrations for the couple, their families, and those invited.

Guest arrive on time, greet the couple, exchange congratulations, offer the "red envelope" as a gift while male-guests are usually offered cigarettes by the groom, and are then shown to the banquet-hall or to one of the many private-rooms.

Here they will share great amounts of wonderfully prepared foods and delicacies with the couple and with friends, while consuming amazing quantities of spirits with other invited guests, as they toast bride and groom and each other.

Drinking seems to loosen the tongues of the usually restrained Chinese, and the alcohol quickly makes the conversations, especially among the men, theater. The women tend to stay with orange juice, perhaps to make sure, that their man will find his way "home".

In a marriage, the male role is symbolized by a dragon and the female by a phoenix, and so many "dragon-phoenix" dishes will be served as part of the banquet, such as specially shaped nuts and cold meat dishes. The delicacies will also include various fish-soups, pig, chicken, rice, noodles, and fresh fruit.

Weddings in smaller towns of China are usually celebrated at the groom's family-home, to which the wife will now be counted as a member. That custom is still seriously entrenched, though no longer with the same historical intensity. Local wedding-ceremonies may also take place in a nearby restaurant, amid a great deal of noise encouraged by "severe" drinking honoring the couple, and mountains of foods.

The night usually ends with the color and the noise of fire-works and fire-crackers presented outside the hosting banquet-hall to the city's population. They are lit directly on the streets, as pedestrians, bicycles, and cars dodge the falling, and sometimes still burning debris.

The dress-code of a Chinese wedding is much more relaxed than in the West. Few guests (if any) will wear coat and tie or a formal dress. Work-pants (often blue-jeans) and a simple work-shirt are the norm, and are never seen and regarded as dis-respect.

Only the newly-weds will dress for the occasion, and the "immediate" family might be seen in more up-scale fashions. The rest of the guests may have just as well arrived in clothing, that had been worn to work on that same day.

Representing "good luck and fortune", the traditional color for anything to do with weddings is red, and even the bed-room for the newly-weds will be decorated in red, including the bed and the sheets. No department store is without a great selection of red-bedding to satisfy the taste of those who are about to marry. (In my mind, the red color of the bedding may also have another significant role, which I will leave to your informed and educated imagination.)

The "one" child of the new couple will often arrive quickly, at times before the time I had expected. It does seem to indicate, that pre-maritual passion in China "maybe" thriving and on the rise.

Once the child arrives, it will be up to the young couple to make sure, that a "second" child will not be born to become a major burden for the new family.

As early passions of marriage may persist with the new couple for some years, contraceptives and protection are readily available in all drug-stores, making it easier for the lovers to avoid the legal and financial obligations of a "second" child. There are heavy fines levied by the government for a "second" child. It can cost a couple "tens of thousand's" of Yuan, an almost impossible sum of money to pay as penalty for an average Chinese family,

Most young people I speak with take the "one-child-policy" of China seriously and accept it as their duty. When I inquire, how many children they might wish for, with few exceptions, they respond with the number "one". Some do hope for "twins" :-) .

The consequences of this one-child-policy, whether positive or negative, are still to be felt in the years to come as China's population begins to age. But there is little discussion among those, with whom I have conversations, about their obligation to support, observe, and continue this law.

I do hear rumblings of a relaxation of this one-child-policy in the future, and when I ask my students during class discussions, if they miss not having a brother or a sister, for the most part, they share this thought: "That they would enjoy the company of another sibling".

When I tell them, that my best friend is one of sixteen children, they are bewildered, and become quite vocal in their dis-belief, and even the suggestion of four or five children to a Western family brings about expressions of astonishment.

And so, with the birth of their "one" child, the new bride and groom of China will have come full-circle in life, having accomplished their duty to their immediate families and their country.

If you have any comments, questions, or thoughts on this journal-entry #92 and on the 51 photos I have included in this Blog, you are welcome to express them, for they make the many hours I spend creating each TravelBlog worth-while, and I will always accept them with gratitude. If you have the time, enlarging the photos will also provide greater details of my experiences and adventures in China.

I miss you all very much and think of you often. Thank you for your many greetings and encouragement you send to me in your emails. They are truly appreciated here, on the other side of the world, where it happens to be very cold at the moment :-(

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