By Anna Leong, Caryn Kuong, Crystal Mak, Rainbow Lao
The Chinese marriage
From the time Portuguese started trading and settled in the 16th century, Macau has become a multicultural village integrated with Eastern and Western cultures. Intermarriage is one of the typical features of this integrated culture. As time flies, the true meaning of the ritual is underappreciated. Yet, it is precious and worth to inherit.
Many girls describe the wedding day as the most gorgeous day in their life, but do you know why? “Well, it is because every girl will be incredibly fabulous in their wedding dress," Chao Lai, a Chinese bride-to-be said.
However, the “wedding dress" that she is talking about is, obviously, not the traditional Chinese bridal dress but the Western one.
Nowadays, because of the influence of the Western culture, wedding style in Macao and the surrounding area is changing, and the most popular wedding style is “Chinese plus Western" – combination of both Chinese and Western rituals, and it seems that the Western tradition is taking a more important position in the recent decade. That is the reason why the traditional Chinese bridal dress shops are gradually disappearing.
“We won’t be able to survive if we run the shop by selling and renting only Chinese bridal dresses, it’s impossible," said Wong Wing So, the owner of Choi Heng Long, a century-old Chinese bridal dress shop.
The shop was established to sell cloth in 1900s; it changed to a traditional Chinese bridal dress shop when Wong took it over in the 1950s. At that time, the shop was engaged only in selling Chinese bridal dresses and some wedding related accessories. Nevertheless, the owner started to bring in different elements to the shop from the 1980s, like renting Western evening dresses, decorating wedding floats and wedding halls.
“We keep changing in order to survive; we have to cater to the needs of our customers. If they want something more, we have to think if we can do it even if it’s not that familiar for us," Wong pointed to their wedding float photos.
All the traditional bridal dresses in Wong’s shop are hand-made, and it takes many months to complete a wedding dress as patterns on the dress are either embroidered with gold and silver threads or beads; such handcraft cannot be finished by machines as they will de-emphasize the dimensionality of the patterns.
In the old days, the traditional bridal dress symbolized one’s identity, only the richest could afford a gold and silver bridal dress as its price could be the equivalent of that of half of an apartment in the 1950s, Wong said. Nonetheless, because of the complicated production process and the declining demand for traditional bridal dresses, fewer and fewer people entered the business, which led to a serious shortage of sewing masters.
Despite of the fact that the traditional bridal dress is becoming more and more precious, the price is usually under MOP100,000, far from the price of half of an apartment nowadays.
Basically, the traditional Chinese wedding ritual is divided into nine parts which is comparatively complicated to foreigners. They are:
1. Exchange of betrothal gifts;
2. Installation of the bridal bed;
3. Bride’s dowry;
4. Hair combing ritual;
5. Escorting the bride;
6. Ritual kneeling;
7. Journey to the groom’s house;
8. Arriving at the groom’s house;
9. The return of the bride.
None of these steps can be missed in a Chinese wedding because each of them contains different but significant meanings.
However, people’s minds have changed; they tend to simplify the traditional rituals nowadays. And the pity is that, in the process of ritual simplification, the cultural meanings of the ritual are being lost .
For instance, the exchange of betrothal gifts is a very important step before the wedding because once the ritual is done the couple has their official engagement. On this day, the groom’s family will send a cash gift and other different kinds of gifts to the bride’s family for good luck and appreciation to the bride’s parents for raising up their daughter for years. The gifts will include more than 20 things, including ceremony cakes, different kinds of dry seafood, a pair of live chickens, wine, nuts, fruits, candies, and so forth. To simplify it nowadays, people put them all in a little basket with everything a mini size. People can actually buy it in Wong’s shop. The funny thing is that, people have invented something called “seafood money" as Wong mentioned, that is, put some money into a red pocket as a substitute of the real seafood.
All of these are actually killing the rituals as well as the culture. What is the point to save only the form without the actual meaning? It seems that the fast food culture is, actually, showing up everywhere in our life.
“That’s why we are here to remind people the culture and the meaning behind the rituals, to draw them back from the Western culture to some extent, so that they can’t go so far as to forget about our own customs," Wong emphasized.
The Macanese marriage
In the Catholic Church, the marriage is a Sacrament. According to Father Manual, the priest of St. Joseph the Worker Church, “Marriage is a symbol of God’s love, a visible sign instituted by Christ to give grace. In order to hold a rite of marriage in a Catholic Church, either the bride or groom should be a Catholic. If both of them are Catholics, their wedding ceremony can be held as a Mass.
A Rite of Marriage will start from the Introductory Rites, the liturgy of the Word and the Eucharist. Followed by the Rite of Marriage, the time when the bride and groom state their intention of the duties of marriage in mutual and lasting fidelity. After that is the Blessing and Exchange of Rings, the Priest will bless the rings in God’s name, and then the bride and groom will exchange the rings as a sign of their love and fidelity to one another. The ceremony will continue with the Eucharist Prayer. If it is a Wedding Mass, the part of the Communion Rite will be added. And finally, it comes to the Concluding Rite.
“I have been married three times. However, I had only one experience of getting married in the church," Candido Augusto Serrao, over 50 years old, a local Macanese said. According to Christianity, marriage is the sacrament of everyone’s life, which can only be done once. There is a line spoken by the priest in a Rite of Marriage, “What God has joined, men must not divide." From the time of the Old and New Testaments, marriage is monogamy, a sacrament from God. So, there should not be any reason for a couple to divorce.
Serrao has a typical foreign face but he speaks Cantonese fluently. He is a typical Macanese. His wife is Chinese. Thus, when they got married, they received the “multi-cultural affection". On the day they were married, they had both the Eastern and Western wedding rituals. “The wedding ritual is a kind of cultural shock!" said Serrao. At the day time, they had the traditional Chinese wedding ritual. In the very early morning the groom had to come to the bride’s home. After that, there was a series of complicated etiquette steps like serving tea to his wife’s parents; exchanging of betrothal gifts, etc. In the afternoon, they went to the church for the Western wedding ritual. At night, they followed the Chinese wedding ritual so that they had the wedding banquet with relatives and friends. However, the Western one is simpler, which is always a private buffet. Serrao said that in general, the Western wedding ritual is more serious than the Chinese one. It might be that people have to follow the priest’s words to continue their wedding. The Chinese one is more relaxed and lively which places marriage as “two families’ big issue" whereas the Western one focuses more on the couple themselves. This might be the biggest difference between the Chinese and Portuguese wedding rituals.
The wedding ritual is part of the culture that we should preserve. Culture means people’s “way of life", or simply means the way they do things. The wedding ritual is a kind of symbol and an invisible bond that ties people of a community together. Through the traditional wedding ceremony, it’s a blessing to the new couple, a meaning of happiness to each of them.
Tips of Chinese marriage ritual
Exchange of betrothal gifts : Sending betrothal gifts to the bride and returning gifts to the prospective groom.
Exchange of betrothal gifts, is the most ceremonious ritual of engagement, which is held after sending the gifts to the prospective bride’s family. The formal engagement is established after this ceremony, the prospective bride and groom are committed to a marriage without regret.
Installation of the bridal bed : Decoration of fortune materials such as lotus seeds and a pair of bedside lamps in the bridal room to symbolize more sons to the family.
It is a kind of blessing to the bride and groom that new generations and a good wealth could be produced by this ritual. A “lucky woman", who has her grandparents, sons and grandsons together, will decorate the bed before the wedding.
Bride’s dowry : A set of blessed gifts from the bride’s family that may be included during the day of betrothal. These include beddings such as pillows and blankets and gold jewelry as well.
Giving the dowry means sending the blessing to the bride and groom and also the gifts to decorate their new house.
Hair combing ritual : Combing hair four times with blessings to wish the couple a long lasting and sweet marriage.The girl, once she goes through this ritual, is considered a bride-to-be. And the hair combing is usually held at night before the wedding.
Escorting the bride : The groom’s family sends a sedan chair to escort the bride to the wedding.
Escorting the bride is the most ceremonious etiquette of the wedding. The groom has to marry the bride on that day.
Ritual kneeling: Making formal bows by the bride and groom to pay respect to the heaven, earth, parents and most importantly, themselves. There are two ritual kneeling ceremonies to both groom’s and bride’s parents.
After the ritual kneeling, the bride formally becomes a member of the groom’s family.
Journey to the groom’s house: The ritual celebration and ceremony are being performed along the way to the groom’s house such as setting off firecrackers to frighten away evil spirits.
It means that the bride is ready to leave her family on the way to the groom’s house. It’s the initial ceremony of the wedding day.
Arriving at the groom’s house : The bride is required to step over a lit stove before entering the doorway of the groom’s house to cast out evil influences.
It is the first step for the bride to step into the groom’s door gate, which symbolizes that she is a member of the groom’s family. Meanwhile, the bride has to give the bow to the groom’s elderly relatives to show respect to them.
The return of the bride: The bride returning to her parents’ home on the third day of the wedding.
Also, she has to go back to the family to visit her parents. Meanwhile, the groom will bring some food to them as a sign of gratitude. This return could be the last chance for the bride to get together with her parents if the groom’s home is far away from her family.