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Hover over the green Chinese Pinyin and a brief definition will pop up; click on the word to see it's Glossary definition. |
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wordschapter sixteenjinzhou redux
I spent 2 of my first three years (1998, 2000) in China in Jinzhou.
the peng cheng - yang qian weddingin this chapterfrom east to west:The last chapter was both a redux and a prelude. A redux, in that I returned to Jinzhou to see lots of friends from my early years in China. And a prelude to the festivities of the big wedding: Peng Cheng and Yang Qian were finally getting married. This chapter is devoted entirely to their fabulous wedding in Jinzhou and subsequent honeymoon in Hangzhou - a fitting dénouement to my life in Jinzhou and Hangzhou over the last 6 years. Chinese weddings are interesting. I have attended a dozen or so weddings in my time in China. They are very different from American weddings in dozens of different ways. (One of the best was one I stumbled upon when I was visiting the Village near Suzhou I wrote about here. I never wrote up the wedding itself, but it was a nice Saturday morning when I went out to the village and we ran into a wedding. Of course, rarely seeing a foreigner, the people invited us to the wedding home. I even helped them load the bride's dowry into the truck to take to the couple's new home.) But I digress. early wake-up callThe night before the wedding of the year on May Day in Jinzhou, 2004, Peng Cheng called Mike and I at dinner and me that I had to do the whole nine yards: the official wedding was at 9:00 a.m. but we were expected at Yang Qian's family home at ...... 7:00 a.m. Huh?!!?? Chinese tradition, which I should have remembered from my Suzhou encounter, was that the wedding party assembles outside the bride's home and they knock on the door and make lots of noise (usually in the form of fireworks) until the bride's family "releases" the bride. So Mike told me they would swing by the hotel and pick me up at 6:30 a.m. Great! I thought. A wedding ceremony at 6:30 a.m. It was an early evening after the prodigal son dinner. The car was there at 6:30 a.m. as promised. We all stumbled to the car (a Mercedes-Benz) and the Benz rumbled over to Yang Qian's house where a small cotillion of black, late-model sedans with flowers glued to their chassis had assembled. Mike and I and the others emerged from the cars to await the arrival of Peng Cheng. Mike's wife Anna, happy to be riding in a Benz, remained ensconced in same. And at precisely 7:00 a.m. Peng Cheng rolled up in a "late"-model limo.
It was pouring raini , but the assembled friends set off a massive wall of fireworks to herald his arrival. Two thoughts went through my mind: if this had happened in an American neighborhood (fireworks going off at 7:00 am, on a Saturday morning) - (a) pre 911 the neighbors would have poured out of their apartments and beaten the shit out of us or (b) post 911 - a SWAT team would have arrived and arrested us all as potential terrorists and/or enemy combatants and I might be writing this now from Guantanamo Bay. But luckily, I was only in Jinzhou. And the neighbors didn't seem to care at all. So our whole group proceeded through the gates of the apartment complex where Yang Qian's family lived and on up to the family apartment where dozens of her family and friends were waiting. Did I mention this was at at 7:00 a.m.? After massive fireworks? Peng Cheng knocked on the door and was admitted immediately. This was a slight breach of Chinese wedding protocol. Chinese custom is that the bride's family is supposed to put up token resistance when the groom knocks on the family door to claim the bride. But, after all, the two of them had been dating for 3 years so everyone knew everyone else and we were merely going through the Chinese Wedding motions. Peng Cheng and the rest of "his boys" were promptly admitted to a very crowded apartment. The bride was beautiful. (Here, I want to say that I live in Hangzhou with it's famous West Lake, which is considered to be one of the most romantic places in all of China. And on any given day here in Hangzhou, I'll run into 5 or 10 wedding parties taking their wedding pictures by West Lake. In my personal (western) opinion, Chinese brides look terrible when all dressed up. I can say this because I see so many of them here in Hangzhou.) But Yang Qian was stunning - the most beautiful Chinese bride I have seen anywhere in China. I told Peng Cheng that and he translated it to Yang Qian. They were both happy.
At Yang's home, pictures were taken, and in traditional Chinese style, the couple was given a bowl of noodles by Yang Qian's mother. A bowl of noodles is a Dongbei custom meaning longevity: "May your marriage last 10,000 years and produce 10,000 children".
After taking pictures, everyone piled out of the apartment for the trip over to "the new house". It was still raining, but a long procession of cars wound their way to the new digs where Peng Cheng and Yang Qian would live.
Luckily, since this was the city, we didn't have to cart the dowry (bedding, furniture, etc.) over there. Peng Cheng and Yang Qian had already furnished it. Complete with and HD-flat-screen TV. It's a beautiful apartment. The assembled wedding guests tramped through the apartment. The couple were bright enough to have a box of plastic foot covers for the guests to slip over their shoes. Here. too, more pictures were taken.
And then it was time to go. The wedding reception awaited. It was now all of 8:30 a.m.In Hangzhou, where I live now, weddings are always held in the evenings. In Jinzhou, and indeed in Dongbei, weddings are usually held in the mornings. Peng Cheng's wedding was definitely a Morning Wedding. But when we finally got to the reception hall, just short of 9:00 a.m., I learned that Peng Cheng's wedding was the SECOND of the day! The people from the 7:00 a.m. wedding were just vacating the hall when we arrived. da wedding!We exited the motorcade of cars from Peng Cheng and Yang Qian's new home to the wedding hall in pouring rain. Another rain of fireworks (yes in the pouring rain) greeted us. Included was an old howitzer (I guess) blasting huge booms skyward. An old guy, maybe a veteran of the Korean War, was manning the howitzer - now converted to a wedding party unit. The booms shook the ground and rattled the teeth and brains of the assembled guests waiting to enter "The Railway Workers' Hall" where the wedding and reception would take place. We waited patiently in the misty rain and raining fireworks (with howitzer) until the remnants of the 7:00 a.m. wedding reception exited the hall (and the hall staff cleaned up and rest the banquet room for the next 400 guests. Then the wedding party flooded in.
Everyone found their tables and awaited the entrance
of the bride and groom to the main stage. And went through the formalities of a Chinese wedding. I can only describe it in pictures: And at last, 3+ years after they had met, Shi Peng Cheng and Yang Qian became Husband and Wife.
Now, the fun part of the wedding began. According to Chinese custom, the bride and groom must go through the whole room and visit each table. At each table, the groom must pour a drink for, and the bride must pass out cigarettes, and light them, for every male at the table. Then the Groom and the males toast and drink. (Chinese society, despite 5000 years of history, remains exceedingly male-oriented.) And Chinese weddings are very alcohol and cigarette oriented, as well as you can see here:
After Peng Cheng and Yang Qian circulated among the 400 guests, the wedding crowd quickly dispersed. This is one characteristic of Chinese weddings which I have still, yet, to get my head around. In the U.S., weddings go on for hours and hours. In China, weddings receptions are quite quick. Everyone piles in, massive amounts of food are quickly piled on tables and massive amounts of alcohol are quickly consumed. And then, everyone leaves. We had entered the Railway Workers' Hall at 9:00 a.m. and by 10:15, a mass exodus occurred. Once the couple had gotten to your table for toasts and cigarettes, you felt free to leave. But not us, Peng Cheng's best friends. We stuck around for the various picture taking, while the hoi polloi filed out, and the hall staff, swept up and cleaned up the remnants of Peng Cheng's wedding and got ready for............ you guessed it! The 11:00 a.m. wedding party that was waiting outside! Three weddings in this hall .... all before noon! 400 plus. 1200 served in only the morning! Imagine if China DIDN'T have the One Child Policy. Anyway, the close friends and family stuck around for more pictures as the cleaning crew...well, cleaned.
Peng Cheng and Yang Qian were married ... at last! But it was still only 11:00 in the morning. There was much more to come over the next few hours and days. As for the next few hours, they were a blur. We reassembled at at a local restaurant, along with the whole stash of beer and booze left over from the wedding party, and had a 5 hour lunch. The bride and groom were present. At some point, Yang Qian and Peng Cheng decided that they wanted to repay my visit to Northeast China by celebrating their honeymoon in Hangzhou, and so plans were made whereby they would come to Hangzhou the following week. And they did. And they (and I) had a wonderful time. Their original plan was to spend a couple of days in Hangzhou and then explore Huang Shan (Yellow Mountain) and Suzhou, and the water-towns in the area, but once Yang Qian saw Hangzhou, she didn't want to leave. So they skipped the other parts of their itinerary, and stayed in Hangzhou with a couple of days in Shanghai for shopping, before traveling back to Northeast China. Peng Cheng made a very nice video of their Honeymoon in Hangzhou which you can see here. If you're looking for a good place to honeymoon, Hangzhou's not a bad place to do it.
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