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Rooster heads, honey buckets add folk twist to weddings
By Lu Muxiang |
January 31, 2011, Monday
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Print Edition
Print Edition
THE Lunar New Year, jolly in itself, becomes double bliss if it coincides with a wedding. Nuptials during Spring Festival have their own distinctive folk customs.
Golden Rooster meal
In eastern Jiading, a bridegroom must eat a "golden rooster meal" before entering his bride's house to escort her to the wedding.
The front door is usually blocked by a wooden bench with a bowl of rice on it, which is sprinkled with sweetmeats and contains a half-cooked rooster head. Custom has it that the bridegroom is not allowed to step over the bench until he finishes the meal. While he is eating, family members and friends intone an old local chant that goes something like this:
"Take the golden rooster meal before passing through the door; and coins will pour down to the floor."
Actually, the meal nowadays is just for symbolic show. The bridegroom does not really need to eat it. How many modern men, after all, want to eat a half-cooked rooster head? The groom can sidestep that dubious culinary experience by simply handing out red packets of money to the bride's family.
There are always tales of bridegrooms who don't know the alternative and struggle through the bowl of food on the bench. Usually, the bride's elders come to his rescue by explaining the escape route.
Fetching the dowry
On the wedding day or the day before, the bridegroom needs to collect his bride's dowry from her home. This procedure is steeped in ritual. For one thing, the number of carriers who accompany the groom on this task, and the number of carrying poles they use must be an even number. An eight-piece dowry, for example, would require 16 porters. Upon their arrival at the bride's home, the porters are first served tea.
The signal to start the move begins when the bride's brother takes a pair of "children's honey buckets" out of the living room.
The move must be accomplished in one go and not in several trips. That requires the bride's family to be specific ahead of time about the size of the dowry. But even the best laid plans often go awry.
There's the story of one bridegroom who enlisted a few friends and borrowed a truck to collect his bride's dowry. However, the truck was too small to handle the whole dowry in one trip, so they planned to do the move in shifts.
The bride's mother, apparently a stickler for tradition, was disappointed and started grumbling. That made the bride very nervous, and she told the groom's friends to take away only the largest pieces so it would all fit in one load.
So the friends hauled the big pieces to the truck and left a fair amount of smaller stuff in the home. When the bride's father saw so many of his daughter's belongings still in the house and figured he was going to get saddled with them forever, he rushed out to stop the truck just as it was about to pull away. "Fetch the rest of the dowry," he said. "I don't care how many trips you need. Just take every single piece."
Teasing newlyweds
After the bride's dowry is taken to her bridegroom's home, the bridegroom's parents make the bed for the newlyweds with new bedding and mattress. This procedure must be done by both parents of the bridegroom. If the bridegroom has only one parent, the duty will fall upon another couple among his relatives. This custom expresses a wish for the continuity of family lineage.
Another symbol guaranteeing the continuity of a family line is the honey bucket. Since honey buckets have been replaced by flush toilets, the replacement stools used in weddings are not genuine. Many families order a mini pair of such stools, called "children's honey buckets" for their daughters' dowries.
Golden Rooster meal
In eastern Jiading, a bridegroom must eat a "golden rooster meal" before entering his bride's house to escort her to the wedding.
The front door is usually blocked by a wooden bench with a bowl of rice on it, which is sprinkled with sweetmeats and contains a half-cooked rooster head. Custom has it that the bridegroom is not allowed to step over the bench until he finishes the meal. While he is eating, family members and friends intone an old local chant that goes something like this:
"Take the golden rooster meal before passing through the door; and coins will pour down to the floor."
Actually, the meal nowadays is just for symbolic show. The bridegroom does not really need to eat it. How many modern men, after all, want to eat a half-cooked rooster head? The groom can sidestep that dubious culinary experience by simply handing out red packets of money to the bride's family.
There are always tales of bridegrooms who don't know the alternative and struggle through the bowl of food on the bench. Usually, the bride's elders come to his rescue by explaining the escape route.
Fetching the dowry
On the wedding day or the day before, the bridegroom needs to collect his bride's dowry from her home. This procedure is steeped in ritual. For one thing, the number of carriers who accompany the groom on this task, and the number of carrying poles they use must be an even number. An eight-piece dowry, for example, would require 16 porters. Upon their arrival at the bride's home, the porters are first served tea.
The signal to start the move begins when the bride's brother takes a pair of "children's honey buckets" out of the living room.
The move must be accomplished in one go and not in several trips. That requires the bride's family to be specific ahead of time about the size of the dowry. But even the best laid plans often go awry.
There's the story of one bridegroom who enlisted a few friends and borrowed a truck to collect his bride's dowry. However, the truck was too small to handle the whole dowry in one trip, so they planned to do the move in shifts.
The bride's mother, apparently a stickler for tradition, was disappointed and started grumbling. That made the bride very nervous, and she told the groom's friends to take away only the largest pieces so it would all fit in one load.
So the friends hauled the big pieces to the truck and left a fair amount of smaller stuff in the home. When the bride's father saw so many of his daughter's belongings still in the house and figured he was going to get saddled with them forever, he rushed out to stop the truck just as it was about to pull away. "Fetch the rest of the dowry," he said. "I don't care how many trips you need. Just take every single piece."
Teasing newlyweds
After the bride's dowry is taken to her bridegroom's home, the bridegroom's parents make the bed for the newlyweds with new bedding and mattress. This procedure must be done by both parents of the bridegroom. If the bridegroom has only one parent, the duty will fall upon another couple among his relatives. This custom expresses a wish for the continuity of family lineage.
Another symbol guaranteeing the continuity of a family line is the honey bucket. Since honey buckets have been replaced by flush toilets, the replacement stools used in weddings are not genuine. Many families order a mini pair of such stools, called "children's honey buckets" for their daughters' dowries.
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