Wedding = love Part 2: The Chinese tea ceremony, hair combing ritual and other wedding traditions

 

There are seven necessities related to the starting of a family's life: firewood, rice, oil, salt, soy sauce, vinegar and tea. ~ Chinese proverb 

Chinese weddings are steeped in tradition and symbolism, superstition and folk lore.  I'm not usually a sticker for tradition,  I really wanted to have Traditional Chinese Tea Ceremonies at our wedding.  There's just something wonderfully romantic about wedding traditions, don't you think?  Knowing that my mother, my grandmothers, their mothers and generations of Chinese women before them have followed the same rituals at their weddings for hundreds of years, made even little old kiwi me feel connected with my heritage.  A link to the past on the first day of our future together.  What an incredibly moving and humbling experience.  

Having said that, since ours was an East meets West kinda wedding, we didn't stick exactly to tradition and cherry picked the things we had time for.  I'd like to think of it as Chinese culture meets Kiwi ingenuity.

 {All photos taken by Jel Photography unless otherwise stated}

So much symbolism

{the double happiness symbol is made up of two Chinese characters for joy and is ubiquitously used as wedding decorations symbolising, unsurprisingly, lots of happiness}

When I say Chinese weddings are steeped in tradition, I mean they are breaded, floured and deep fried in tradition.  There is so much symbolism, it's not even funny.  Everything has significance, everything has a meaning.  Usually the symbolism is pretty obvious, with things that sound like the words luck, prosperity and happiness in Chinese being frequently used.  The Chinese like a good pun.

Even the colours have meaning with red being the predominant colour in Chinese weddings as it symbolises happiness and joy in Chinese culture.  Gives a whole new twist to seeing red, doesn't it? 

Pictures of dragons and phoenixes are everywhere too, as both of these symbols represent the Chinese tradition of treating the bride and groom as 'Empress and Emperor' for a day, and has roots in the mythology that the dragon represents the Emperor, and the phoenix the Empress.  I was quietly amused that the groom is a dragon as that is exactly how I'd describe pre-caffeine C.  No birdbrain jokes now, thank you very much.
 
The Hair Combing Ritual

{items for the hair combing ceremony, each with symbolic meanings}

The traditions actually start the night before the wedding with a Hair Combing Ceremony.  Central to this ritual (and also to the tea ceremonies) is the Good Luck Lady, someone who is blessed with a happy marriage and healthy husband, children and in laws.  My cousin Sarah was my "Good Luck Lady" for our wedding and she also generously lent me her gorgeous qua to wear: the traditional red Chinese wedding dress made of hand embroidered silk.

{Massive thank you for everything Sarah!!}

On the eve of the wedding, my mum, Sarah and mum's friend Nicola (a veritable goldmine of knowledge on Chinese wedding traditions) came to my hotel room with a bunch of seemingly innocuous items which all had symbolism of some sort.  As per tradition, I showered and put on a brand new pair of pyjamas and underwear and sat looking out the window facing the moon with a mirror in front of me.  Sarah combed my hair four times reciting four Chinese sayings:

一梳梳到尾 First combing, continuous from beginning till end, may you be together all your lives.

二梳百年好合 Second combing, may you have closeness and harmony in your marriage for a hundred years, till a ripe old age.

三梳子孙满堂 Third combing, may you fill your home with children and grandchildren.

四梳梳到四条银筍尽標齐 Fourth combing, may you enjoy abundant wealth together and an everlasting marriage.

{via here and here} 

{The red silk qua is the traditional Chinese wedding dress.  The groom also has a similar version complete with a hat but C passed on wearing one...}

To close the ritual we ate little round glutinous rice dumplings with sesame in a sweet syrup to symbolise a complete and sweet marriage.  I slept with the evergreen frond pinned to my hair which is to wish us an evergreen marriage.  

The Tea Ceremonies

In the olden days, the tea ceremony was the Chinese equivalent to the exchanging of vows.  Nowadays, it's still a significant part of Chinese weddings.   

The act of serving tea to your parents and family is a way for the couple to show respect and express your gratitude to them for all they have done bringing you up.  The couple serves tea to family members according to their generational rank.  By drinking the tea, the families showed they accept the couple into the family.  

During the tea presentation, the Good Luck Lady would say auspicious phrases to bless the newlyweds and the family members.  The sayings usually had something to do with wishing the couple a long and happy marriage and truckloads of children.  Wishing us loads of kiddies was kind of a theme for the day.  Just a wee bit scary that.

The sweet herbal tea symbolizes sweetness in the new union and the lotus seeds and red dates in the tea symbolize the hope that the couple will bear children quickly and continuously, as the Chinese words for lotus seed and dates sound like "children quickly" and "children continuously".   

We each presented a cup of tea to each relative, they drink the whole cup and then in return, present you with gifts in form of lei see (red envelopes with money) or jewellery.  

We had tea ceremonies for both C's family and my family.  A crash course intro to the weird and wacky world of Chinese traditions for C's family and a poignant and meaningful age-old ritual for mine.   There was lots of laughing and some crying, kneeling and bowing, and a marathon of tea drinking. 

In a quiet moment, we paid respect to my dad with kow tow and incense, silently sending love and gratitude and remembering all that he did for us and all the love he had for us.  Thanks dad, love you always.

And just as the sun was setting over the skyline, we headed off to our reception where a big fat Chinese banquet awaited us.  Hello 12 course meal...

Watch this space for the next wedding chapter: My Big Fat Chinese Banquet Reception