Chinese Weddings

My correspondence from China, Emma Li, is going to be attending a wedding soon! Her brother is going to be getting married and while I was reading her autobiography I was intrigued on how their weddings were like. I found out a lot from Emma and did a little research based off of the things that she told me. I've always liked weddings and was very pleased to have someone that could tell me more about it.

I found out that Chinese weddings aren't as different from American weddings if their modern weddings. Traditional Chinese wedding are very different from American weddings. The type of music they play at their weddings is a little different as well. Emma said, "The instruments were often suona, erhu, drum, etc." She sent along an attachment with pictures of these instruments.

The suona is is an important instrument in the folk music of northern China. The erhu is a two-stringed bowed musical instrument, more specifically a spike fiddle, which may also be called a "southern fiddle", and sometimes known in the Western world as the "Chinese violin" or a "Chinese two-stringed fiddle". And then a drum, which us self-explanatory. They’ll play this while the bride is walking down the aisle. Emma also said, “Brides usually wore red dresses to show the pleased celebrate of atmosphere. When a couple was holding their wedding, they would kowtow to the world and their parents. The next day the bride should serve tea to her parents in law to show her respect.

I found it very cool that the bride would have tea with the parent in laws the next morning after the wedding. It just put in perspective the old traditions and how much they valued their relationships with their in-laws. The bride would typically wear a red dress in a traditional wedding. Although it’s not like the types of dresses that we think of. They’re silkier and robe like. Nothing like the dresses that we wear at our weddings in America. Although they are quite different, I do find them very beautiful.

“Nowadays, people won’t hold the traditional weddings. Some will go to the church but most will hold the weddings in restaurants. Brides usually wear white or red wedding dresses. They do not need to kowtow to anyone,” Emma Li writes to me in the email. She then attached two more photos of what people would typically wear and what the wedding would look like. I’m not sure what type of wedding her brother will have but I think they’ll have a more modern wedding like most people. I will probably end up asking and finding out for sure. There’s one thing to remember though, “But either traditional weddings or modern weddings, they all mean true love of couples.” –Emma Li-