Here Comes The Bride

Attended my first Chinese wedding reception on Sunday. It was to say the least short and sweet. One hour and 20 minutes start to finish. The reception was for our contact in the foreign affairs department Liu Guodong. He and his wife Aileen were married in Guodong's hometown near the city of Xian, home to the terracotta soldiers. The wedding was held during the spring festival. This reception was held for all their friends and acquaintances in Harbin who could not attend his wedding.

We were picked up by a bus and dropped off at the hotel where the reception was to be held. We were met at the door by Guodong and escorted upstairs to the hall. We were 20 minutes early but the place was already hopping. A quick count indicated there was going to be over 250 guests attending. The hall was already hazy with cigarette smoke, a blue cloud hanging over the tables. On each table were two bottles of pop, beer and a small bottle of a wickedly strong liquor popular in NE China. It tastes like rubbing alcohol only with a higher alcohol content and a worse taste. Smelling it could cause blindness.

The reception started about 10 minutes late. The bride and groom were welcomed into the reception with canned music played at a level that would have required ear protection anywhere else. I had been warned there may be fireworks and given the amount of flammable material around, I quickly oriented myself to the nearest fire exit, conveniently located right behind my chair. As the bride and groom entered, two large bangs went off sending a Vesuvius like eruption of a of paper confetti everywhere. Great, more flammable material. A very lively MC kept up a loud and high speed banter that even our resident Chinese speakers were hard pressed to understand. It seemed to follow traditional wedding reception form with speeches from the best man and the boss. A small decorated bag was place on each table which contained candy and cigarettes. Candy and smokes are traditional gifts to guests of wedding.

Following the speeches the couple completed two small ceremonies. The first involved a huge tower of tea candles. The groom was handed what looked like a glass sword with a weird tip. He waved the sword over the candles then lit the tip of the sword from one of the tea candles. He then used the small flame on the end of the sword to light what I thought was a large candle. It immediately transformed itself into a 24" long lance of fire that you could have probably done some welding with. I looked for the nearest fire extinguisher and edged closer to the exit. I kept a sharp eye on it and watched it safely burn itself out in about 2 minutes.

The bride and groom then move over to the opposite side of the stage to a stack of champagne glasses in the shape of a water fall. They gently opened a bottle of champagne and together poured the contents into the top glass. They continued to pour till that glass was full then the champagne overflowed into the next glass and so on and so on till the bottom glass was full. The whole thing was sized to accept the entire bottle of champagne. The couple then took two of the champagne glasses and toasted each other.

Through out these activities the staff brought dish after dish of food. We eventually had over 10 dishes on the table, sometimes having to stack one dish on top of another. They were mostly dishes that I recognized and had eaten many times. They included shrimp, beef, pork, fish, fungus, mushrooms, mixed vegetables and of course rice. It was probably one of the tastiest meals that I have enjoyed to date. Throughout this, the MC sang songs, pointed at us a lot and kept the crowd entertained.

The last duty of the bride and groom was to attend each table and drink a toast using that wonderful rubbing alcohol but served in a thimble size glass. Probably wise as they had over 25 tables to visit. We were able to toast with what ever was on the table. The couple then disappeared to the lobby where they provided photo ops for the departing guests. By 12:45 the exodus had started and by 1:10 we were one of the last tables. By 1:30, you would not have known a wedding had taken place in the room except by the floor which was littered with flammable materials, cigarette butts and empty bottles.

A great introduction to a Chinese wedding. I hope to be invited to more in the future.