What did you do this morning?

Oh, not much, you know, checked my email, had some amazing cultural experiences.  No big deal.  (I am so lucky!!)

So, yesterday I woke up a bit earlier than normal (6:30am-ish), and went through the usual morning routine, trying to hack my way through the internet and whatnot.  Pretty much standard program.  However, around 7am or so, some fireworks started going off near my apartment.  Now, this in itself is not so strange; I hear someone setting off fireworks for one reason or another almost every day.  Weddings, store openings, funerals, whatever; every occasion calls for fireworks!  Especially, it seems, during the wee hours of the morning...

So, it was a few minutes before I became actually curious about what was going on, and realized that they were being ignited inside my apartment complex, and I could hear someone talking excitedly over a microphone.  So, grabbing my trusty camera, I went out to see what was going on, and this is what I came upon:

I got to see a Chinese wedding!  Right outside my apartment!  Who saw that coming?

(For more, you may either keep reading the long-ish post, or you can just look at the pictures on flickr. However, I don't feel like captioning the pictures right now, so you'll just have to guess at what's happening.  Of course, that's what I had to do at first anyhow...)

I felt rather strange and out of place (surprise!) being at a wedding I wasn't invited to, but towards the end I realized that uninvited bystanders probably outnumbered the actual guests anyhow, fitting in with the usual Chinese way of taking free entertainment where you can get it.  The whole experience was pretty neat. Here are some highlighted differences between this wedding and any others I've been to:

Firstly, on many levels it contained a slight bit of, how do you say..., "cheese".  As you can see pictured above, not only was there an MC running the show that reminded me of a hibachi grill worker that does Elvis impersonations (or maybe JD from Chopstix), there was also a big, slightly hideous inflatable backstop to the whole thing (since it was otherwise simply in an alleyway in front of the apartment building).  However, the rest of the ceremony was actually quite beautiful. 

A great deal of importance was placed on veneration of elders, including the wife's parents, who had already passed away, but were presumably still invited, and ended up participating anyhow (pictured below, left).  There were also many symbolic offerings for luck/prosperity/fertility etc., such as a bowl full of various fruits and candied things, which ended up working a side-job as an offering to all the little kids that swarmed it after the ceremony.

Another large part of the ceremony was the welcoming of the bride into the husband's family.  One part of this tradition is the giving of the "Hongbao", or "Red Envelope" (pictured below).  Often these small envelopes are given out by grandparents to grandchildren, for instance, on the Chinese New Year.  They usually contain small amounts of money, or small trinkets, but as I understand, they are fairly symbolic, and a big part of celebration of holidays.  Incidentally, upon investigation I learned that the word itself can be also used to mean "kickback" or "bribe".  Interesting.

Also, the bride was teary the whole time.  It was super cute.

Towards the very end of the "ceremony", a large number of the pair's friends rushed the couple a number of times, and playfully attempted to make them kiss each-other by force, which they were not having!  This apparently is a tradition left over from a time when Chinese couples were a bit shy.  After a few failed attempts, the groom simply laughed and picked up his bride, and proceeded to walk into his apartment building.  I tried to catch these bits on film, but for the most part, the press of bodies made it rather difficult:

After this happened, one of the funny old women there told me I should follow them up so I could see what happened next.  Wary of the possibility that I had overextended my non-invitation, and equipped with the knowledge of American post-wedding tradition, I respectfully declined.

Overall, while this wasn't a hugely traditional wedding by any means (those are usually reserved for fairly high-class folks around here), I found the whole experience fascinating, and particularly enjoyed the overall mood of celebration and joy that permeated the whole event.  Not bad for a Tuesday morning.

And of course, the ubiquitous fascination with foreigners persists.