This past Sunday found me in my usual spot in McDonald’s, drinking coffee and watching people. I arrived there fairly early, for me, at 0830. In the front of the restaurant, where the really big windows are located, an older man sat reading a newspaper. It was just he and I until a little family joined us about 30 minutes later. It was blissfully quiet.
I was enjoying my coffee and thinking about random things when I realized that three or four wedding processions had just passed through the intersection in front of me. In the US we do funeral processions, but we don’t really do wedding processions, do we? In China, they are very common. These processions consist of a line of cars decorated with balloons and flowers that transport the bride and family to the wedding venue. Another interesting factoid, Chinese weddings take place in the morning.
Typical Wedding Car
It was a perfect morning for a wedding. We’ve been having spectacular weather lately, and Sunday morning was no exception. Pleased to have seen several processions, I took out my camera and hoped another would pass so I could snap a few photos. Well, May 10th must be a lucky day for weddings, because no less than TWENTY processions passed by between 0830 and 0930. Is there some reason they all passed by McDonald’s? Were these processions happening all over the city? Because I saw 20 in one intersection alone, what about the other hundreds of intersections?
Firecrackers are de rigeur at weddings here, and I could here them echoing from all directions. Occasionally, someone in one of the procession cars would toss a firecracker out the window. This is for luck. (Also, possibly to scare away any baddies…) Not only were the passengers hanging out the car to toss firecrackers, some of them had a job to do:
Another thing they do – videotaping the procession
I remember when we were planning our own wedding in northern Spain and we needed to find a car that would drive me to the church. This was evidently a very important decision. I couldn’t just arrive at the church in the family’s Ford Fiesta. (It would have been fine for me, but you know, it is easy to get pulled into what is “done”.) We eventually ended up with an Audi 8, which is a fantastic luxury car. This mentality exists in China, as well. Processions most commonly consist of black Audi after black Audi. (Black Audis are common government cars here.) I was surprised to see a few variations on the theme Sunday, however. One impressive procession consisted of seven beautiful white BMWs. Another consisted of two SUVs painted in red and green rally/off road racing designs followed by three black SUVs. A few had tan/gold color cars. Are these cars borrowed, rented or simply what the family drives? I’d sure love to know a family that drives seven white BMWs.
A little variation on the color scheme
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I think Sunday was a particularly auspicious day for weddings, because we passed one such procession on the Badaling Expressway at 7:30 am (!) when I was on my way to Mass. My regular Sunday cab driver asked me if we did the same in the US. At first glance it looked like an American funeral procession, what with a line of slow black cars with caution lights flashing lights, then I remembered where I was. I couldn’t remember the word for funeral, because I think he would have found it funny that what they do for weddings we do for funerals.
Have you been to a Chinese funeral? I’ve seen a few non-Christian ones, walking processions with people draped in white, some throwing firecrackers. I’ve only actually been to one funeral in China, a Catholic funeral,and there were no firecrackers. The other difference was the family was draped in black, and all mourners were given squares of black with a white cloth flower on it to pin to our clothes.
I have not been to a Chinese funeral, but there are two cemeteries located next to the airport where I work, so I frequently see funerals in progress. At some the attendees are all wearing white aprons, what appear to be white sacks on their heads, and rope belts. Sometimes these people walk from great distance together as a group, other times they all arrive by car. The grave site is covered with shiny paper bouquets and sometimes paper household items are burned there as well. And there are many firecrackers. Many. I hear them all day long. While I’m not sure that is such a good idea so close to the airport, they are usually the kind that make noise, close to the ground, not the ones that shoot high up in the air.
When I lived in the countryside outside of Shijiazhuang in Hebei, I observed many rounded mounds of dirt in the middle of the fields. A friend told me they were the grave sites of the folk who lived nearby and tended the fields.
Another anecdote, in that same area in Shijiazhuang, there was a little cemetery at the end of the runway (or beginning if you are landing that direction). There they did shoot off fireworks into the air, and we always thought that was a serious hazard for approaching or departing aircraft. In addition, if an airplane couldn’t take off, it would plow right into the graves.
Thanks for commenting, these are just the kind of anecdotes I love to hear about.
In Armenia, people who can afford it do the same sort of thing, a whole wedding parade circling Independence Square in the middle of Yerevan, the capital. They circle and circle and the bride and groom stand up in an open mile-long white limousine and wave to the spectators like royalty. Usually there will be a car in front of them with a video camera going. Great fun!
In Ramallah, Palestine, I remember the wedding parties afterward because they’d have loud speakers set so high they’d wake up the dead. It would go on and on until 1 at night and keep us awake! Cheerful music though! Ah, the globetrotting life, such adventures!
Miss Footloose’s last blog post..SHEARING THE EXPAT
I love these stories! The thing about waving from the limousine reminds me of my junior prom in Kuwait. My friends and I rented a “limousine” that turned out to be an extended station wagon with three rows of seats, but all facing forward like a bus. So strange. But that didn’t stop us from rolling down the windows and waving to everyone we passed.
Thanks for sharing!
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