The Household COO

The weekend came and went and just like that, my brother’s wedding was over. I still find it amazing how much planning is involved in a wedding only for it to be over before you know it.

I don’t know if this was a typical wedding by Shanghai standards since it is the first one I have ever been privy to but it was certainly very different from mine. Regrettably, I didn’t get a chance to take photos leading up to the main event in the evening because the hubby and I took a very short overnighter. We arrived in Shanghai with enough time to visit to the hair salon, attend the dinner and taste some rather mediocre breakfast at the airport before flying back home to our son.

I’m afraid I took some rather horrid pictures from the wedding. Ordinarily I would have snapped so many photos I would have had to have some good shots. Since I stupidly forgot to download my old photos, I had limited memory to play with. Even so I’m quite surprised how badly my photos turned out. Luckily KH was there to play unofficial photographer so I’ll wait until he sends me the DVD copy from his camera before I post up the full details of the wedding.

In the mean time, here’s a sneak peek of the wedding dinner:

About a week back, the hubby and I were looking for a wedding present for my brother and his wife. We thought a nice dinner cutlery set would be a very practical and useful gift. Unfortunately, dinner cutlery sets come with a set of butter knives and that would probably go down poorly with the bride and her family who are traditional to the core.

Tips for the uninitiated:

If you are shopping for a wedding present for a Chinese couple - especially a traditional one, or one with traditional parents - anything with knives are out of the question. There is an age old belief that the knife bodes ill for the couple because it represents the severing of the relationship. Whether it infers a future divorce or just a difficult relationship, I am not certain. Whatever the case, just stay away from the knives.

B has been my friend since third grade in primary school. I didn’t make it to her wedding but she had a pretty lovely ceremony up in the Snowy Mountains. Now that’s another venue I would have loved to have - a wedding surrounded by nature.

Unfortunately, the weather in Malaysia isn’t the most conducive for outdoor weddings although we were planning an evening garden party at Ciao until we had to change the wedding date because the fung shui was all wrong.

Here are some of the photos from B’s wedding. B with her man:

The couple with the bridesmaids and groomsmen:

The couple with B’s parents:

The lovely ladies:

The only stress about an outdoor wedding is the question of whether the weather will hold up. Looks like B’s day was pretty perfect. Sunshine and blue skies - what more could a bride ask for?

If I thought I had a lot of traditions to observe for my wedding, I ought to think again because I’m sure my brother has it a lot worse.

When the hubby and I decided to get married, I told him that he ask my parents for permission first. This is the standard expectation for most Chinese parents. I learned this lesson when I was still a teenager when my cousin and her boyfriend came home one day to announce that they were getting married. Her father, my uncle, ranted and raved for days about how kids these days had no respect for their elders.

For my brother’s case, merely seeking the parents approval is not sufficient. They have to get the fathers to talk. Her father asks my father if agrees to the marriage and in return my father has to ask her father if he agrees to the marriage. This is where it gets complicated. C’s father is in Shanghai and he only speaks Mandarin. My father’s Mandarin is limited at the very best.

Having worked in Taiwan for just over a year, I have to say I was quite impressed with my brother’s language acquisition. However, even with what he had managed to learn in that time, it was still very much like the blind leading the blind.

Since we were all rather clueless as to the specifics of the requirements, my Dad made the grave mistake of not asking C’s father if he approved of the marriage. He had assumed that all that was required was merely for him to say he agreed to the marriage.

And that was just the beginning.

After talking to the hubby I realised that in my family’s ignorance, there were a number of things we did during my wedding that was apparently considered to be bad mannered. And here I thought we were just being easy going. Since the hubby’s family knew we were oblivious to the expectations, they overlooked our “poor” manners.

From what I was made to understand, such mistakes would not be acceptable in my brother’s case. It is also more complicated because he is the groom, whereas I was the bride. I guess you could say that in a Chinese wedding, it’s easier to be the bride.

I’ve always thought of the dowry as a rather superfluous part of the wedding and hence I told my hubby that my parents expected nothing. However, in Chinese customs, just because someone says something is not required doesn’t mean you can ignore it. The hubby’s parents still made jewellery (among the other things) to give me during the “Koh Tai Lei” because what they give me during the ceremony is supposed to represent my worth. To give nothing would imply that they thought I was worthless. It also meant that my hubby is rather silly for marrying a woman who is considered worthless.

Complicated isn’t it? This is apparently just the tip of the ice berg. All I can say is, “Good luck, my brother.”