Weddings Before and Now

The first “wedding” that I attended in Taiwan wasn’t actually the ceremony, but it was the Saturday afternoon reception given by the family of the groom. I found out later that a similar feast was to be given by the bride’s side in her hometown in the south of the island the next day. At the time, I was not aware that the actual ceremony, if it could be called that, was strictly a family affair and that the reception functioned as an announcement and a witnessing of the nuptials. Since the mother of my host family was friends of the groom’s mother and not of the bride’s, we only feted with the former. As I watched other people entering the room, one man caught my eye. He was wearing a shirt with islands of thin crisscrossing black lines in a sea of cream. At least, that’s what I saw from the back. From the front, the shirt was wide open and flapping, his prominent beer belly sticking out, covered by a white a-shirt with a betel nut juice stain directly below the left corner of his mouth. His tailored trousers were gray, while his shoes were dusty and old. What struck me most about his attire was the new, cheap, navy blue baseball cap on his head, pushed back from his brow and pointing upwards at a sharp angle and to his right. As he walked past me, he raised a thick, rough farmer’s hand to wave to some friends sitting beyond our table and started yelling Taiwanese at them.

My second memory was my host mother, telling me to slow down as the second course was being served. I had already woofed down almost two full bowls of hors d’oeuvres and was filling up a second bowl of shark fin soup when she told me that there were ten more dishes to come. In the end, my gut was a miniature of the farmer in the baseball cap.

Things have changed since then, but some have stayed the same. First, I have seen less shark fin. This has led to other “delicacies” to be served, such as goose feet. It is actually not too bad when it is served with the right sauce and cooked to the proper tenderness that allows the webs to fall off the half-inch long toe bones that one spits out. Another is rooster testicle soup, in which the bloated gonads float on top and appear to be the same size a human male’s. When the waitress told me what the dish was, I incredulously pointed out that the castrated cock had to be as tall as me, to which she walked off mumbling something about stupid foreigners. They have little flavor, but it is apparently the texture of the swimming stones that leads to their appeal.

There are no wedding gifts. Invited guests put crisp new bills in lucky red envelopes, usually in an amount with a six in the hundred’s digit. Odd numbers are inauspicious because they are odd and indivisible, while “four” in Chinese sounds like death and is totally unacceptable. Two is too tiny and eight is a bit extravagant, even if it is the Chinese equivalent to “lucky seven”. So, that leaves six, like $600 or $1,600. Amounts divisible by six hundred are sometimes used, but not often. The amount one gives is also dictated by how much the upcoming wedding party may have given at a previous wedding within one’s family. Such information is accessed by examining the wedding donation register, a tally completed at the check-in table manned by siblings, close cousins or trusted friends at the entrance to the dining hall. As guests enter, they are greeted and directed to the table, where they sign a silk banner and turn in their red envelope. It is accepted with gracious smiles and gratitude, checked to see that a name has been written on it and then passed down the line to the counter, who scribbles the name in the log, counts the contents and enters the amount below the name.

Before, an album would be placed on the check-in table for guests to “ooooh” and “aaaahh” at studio photos taken usually a few weeks before the reception. Most of the pictures had the groom standing tall or sitting proudly while the bride would be at his side or just behind in a pose of adoration. He would wear the same suit in all of the pics while she could have as many as four different costumes, ranging from a traditional western white gown to one of Chinese imperial yellow, from a fortuitous red dress to a Japanese kimono of dark jade green. With the advent of digital cameras, a wider variety of shots are now presented on screens from overhead projectors within the dining hall itself, with a sound track of the couples’ three favorite songs, often including Grant and Barrymore, playing throughout the meal in a loop ad nauseam. Though most of the presentation still presents “traditional” poses as before, they also have others that are more romantic, almost to the point of seductive, such as her in a blue sleeveless gown leaning back on a settee with a beguiling look and placing a naked foot on his lap, or simply playful, like him doing a jumping jack over her. Then there is the PowerPoint production of the happy couple’s childhood snapshots and those of when they dated, along with a short biography of their relationship.

One significant change of late is the throwing the bouquet, à la Taiwan. Instead of witnessing a free-for-all of young women vying for the prize, six misses are led up to the stage where each grabs a long lacy pull attached to a posy held by the bride. The young ladies fan out in a half-circle with the bride at the center and, on the count of three, yank the strings, one of which is tied securely to the flowers. The winner gets the arrangement, as well as a prize, such as perfume. In an effort to provide equal opportunity embarrassment, the whole process is repeated by the groom and six of his single friends.

The one thing that seems of have stayed constant over the years is that the women, no matter how old, dress up for weddings, while the men are much more relaxed. The women participating in the bouquet “toss” at a recent feast were in short dresses and high heels while their hair was coiffed to perfection. Of the six guys in the male go-around, three were in jeans, four had their shirt tails hanging out and none wore a tie. At the table next to mine, a middle-aged man wore a white T-shirt that read down the middle of the back in bright red, “Exercise! Eat! Sleep! Exercise! Eat! Sleep! Exercise!” At least there weren’t any betel nut stains on it.