|
|||||||||
|
|||||||||
|
 |
Adding Asian Elements and Traditions to Your Wedding
To tell the truth, though, I knew little about Chinese wedding traditions then -- just what I had seen in movies. I thought it would be "cool" to wear one of those old-fashioned embroidered two-piece silk dresses, and maybe have my hair done up in one of those fancy headdresses. All I could find, however, were sequined dance costumes. A family friend had two Peking Opera headdresses, but they were a bit over the top. When my great aunt in Tianjin sent a red cloth veil, I realized that "doing it traditionally" required that I would be basically blindfolded. With this red cloth draped over my head for the whole ceremony and reception, I would see nothing and nobody would see me. Out of the question—I wanted beautiful photographs! And so began the compromises, a search to create something new. Incorporating Asian elements or traditions into one’s wedding is increasingly popular, but not always easy for us second- and third-generation Asian Americans. We may not know all the traditions, and for mixed marriages (of various configurations) in particular, we may have a multitude of conflicting obligations to fulfill and relatives to please. As the saying goes, it’s not really your wedding, but the wedding your mother never had. (In my case, this truism became more complicated still: My mother thought my yen for a "traditional" wedding was weird. Although white is a Chinese funeral color, my mother, my grandmother, and even my great-grandmother had all gotten married the "modern" way, in white Western wedding gowns.) So, if you want to do more than use a cheesy "Oriental" font on the invitations, you will need to research and seek advice to best update old Asian traditions and meld them gracefully with Western ones. This is especially true if the marriage is going to be interethnic, interracial, or interfaith. (My husband at this point interjects that if he had to do it again, he would forgo the Christian ceremony altogether: "Why try to meld them? If you are going to do it, why not just go all the way?") Yet, the extra research, family outreach, and serious thought is worthwhile--you end up with a really meaningful, well-considered, personalized ceremony.
Do Your ResearchResearch the basic wedding traditions of your Asian heritage and Western ceremonies to know your options and understand the details of the rituals that are your raw materials. Some rituals are easy to incorporate, such as putting earrings on the Vietnamese bride after the exchange of rings, including marriage sponsors and a cord ceremony in a Catholic Filipino wedding ceremony, or adding bridesmaids and groomsmen to a Hindu ceremony. Other rituals have specific religious significance that cannot be randomly tucked into a ceremony of a different faith. Some resources follow. Ask both sets of parents (and each other) what is really important to them and where you have room to compromise. Indian-American Anita Vernekar wanted to have a Quaker wedding until her mother said in no uncertain terms that she could only have a Hindu wedding. End of discussion. When Ivan Li got married, his Caucasian bride’s family wanted a small intimate wedding, but his parents wanted a big Chinese banquet—so they had both. It worked out because while the wedding ceremony is the most important part for Westerners, the banquet is the most important part for Chinese people. Ask religious leaders for ideas of what they can do and what is not acceptable. A Hindu pundit I met offers different ceremonies, including a shorter, simpler one with more English and more egalitarian content for the American-born. If the religious gulf is too wide to bridge, you may have to have two separate ceremonies, or leave some aspects (such as making offerings to the ancestors’ spirits) outside the other church. When Filipina-American MaryDell Paragas married her Indian-American husband Shaum, they had both a Catholic wedding and a Hindu wedding. A Thai-Caucasian couple wrote to TheKnot.com that they had a Buddhist blessing the night before their Christian wedding. Then go exploring in your ethnic neighborhood, preferably with a relative who knows what's what. My Aunt Suzie took me down to Oakland Chinatown to find red and gold Chinese invitations which we printed in Chinese and English (added bonus: Chinatown printers are much cheaper). My mom took me to San Jose’s Japantown, where we found little red chopsticks to give away as favors (an idea we stole from my cousin).
Adapt TraditionsBe open to adapting old traditions. Shu Shu Costa, author of Wild Geese and Tea—An Asian American Wedding Planner, writes that traditionally, a Korean groom was supposed to give a live goose to the bride’s family to show fidelity, but these days, most people give a wooden goose instead. When Sammy Liu, a third-generation Japanese American, married, she and her girlfriends spent hours folding 1,000 gold origami cranes (the bride is supposed to fold 999 cranes and the groom folds 1 to symbolize devotion to each other). But now, you can buy your 1,000 cranes already folded, arranged, and framed against a black background in the shape of your family crest. Hansa Mehta told India Abroad that Indian weddings in America are "a melting pot of customs from different regions of India." Although her American-born daughter is having a Gujerati wedding, she is going to mahendi her hands and feet (which the Gujerati do not do) because she feels that is an essential part of an "Indian wedding," and they are serving Mugalhai food instead of Gujerati food. Other ways to incorporate Asian elements include incorporating your family’s language into the ceremony with songs, music, prayers, and readings; using red and gold for the flowers and decorations; bilingual and/or ethnic invitations; wearing ethnic clothing for the wedding (when else are you going to have a chance to wear a gorgeous hanbok, kimono, cheong sam, ao dai, or sari?) or changing into ethnic clothing for the reception; using Asian print fabrics and papers. Sara Goldberg and Claude Goetz reported to TheKnot.com that for their Jewish-Japanese wedding, Claude's Japanese mother sewed the huppah, a Jewish wedding canopy, from an antique family heirloom obi, a silk brocade gold and green sash worn with a kimono, which they then attached to four bamboo poles. If you are worried about possibly being tacky or inauthentic, that is why you need to do good research. Of course the easiest way to "Asianize" any event is with food. Violette Paragas had a Hindu wedding followed by a Filipino feast. At Melissa Lam’s Chinese-Jewish wedding, they had blintzes, potato pancakes, lo mein noodles (for long life), chicken (represents wealth), and fortune cookies. Their rehearsal dinner was a Chinese banquet, and the post-wedding brunch was lox and bagels. (TheKnot.com) [Note: If a large percentage of the guests are going to be East Asian, do not serve a lot of cheese or cream sauces or everyone may feel ill from lactose intolerance.] It is also popular to include a page in the wedding program describing and explaining the rituals so that your guests will also understand the meanings. Make sure everyone in the wedding party is briefed before the wedding, too. At one Hindu wedding I attended, the pundit kept asking rhetorical questions, like "What is love?" which the Caucasian groom kept trying to answer—once, twice, three times.
Traditions Beyond the Ceremony and Reception
The main thing is to do your research, then do what feels right. Incorporate the rituals that have resonance for you and skip the ones that feel foolish. As long as you understand and respect the meaning behind the traditions, you can adapt them. Weddings can be long, stressful, marathon pageants, but it is actually supposed to be fun. Besides, in the end, no matter what you do, most guests will leave feeling that it was a beautiful ceremony. I had a long red silk cheong sam (qi pao) embroidered with a gold and silver dragon and phoenix made in San Francisco Chinatown for $200 by the man who makes the cheong sams for all the Miss Chinatowns. It was gorgeous, form-fitting, with slits up to there, but when people asked, "Is that a traditional Chinese wedding dress?" I answered no. It was not traditional, but it was Chinese and it was made in America. Sort of like me.
Share your own wedding stories with us by e-mailing Frances!
Resources
Vivah
- Design a Perfect Hindu Wedding
http://www2.afk.com/catalog/Detail.tmpl$search?db=AFKStore.db&eqSKUdata=ML311W&cart=31906987241857
AskGinka.com
Filipino
Weddings
The Wedding Banquet
(Video)
Monsoon Wedding
Joy-Luck Club (Video)
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
I love raising eyebrows by cheekily
telling people that I was married in red. 
Finally, keep in mind
that traditions are not always manifested as formal rituals. I
once attended a wedding where the photographer, who had worked
numerous Asian weddings, suggested that they take a photo with the
entire extended family--which in some cases can extend into the
hundreds--because that is what Asians do. The Caucasian bride
decided that she did not want any photographs of the extended
family taken because she thought that was too many people for a
"family" photograph. After the ceremony, when the couple
encouraged "everyone" to go on to the reception while they
remained to sit for photographs, the Chinese relatives took that
to mean "everyone except family," and also stayed waiting to pose
for the photograph that never came. For the bride, it was just a
photograph; for the family, it was a part of the
wedding.
Wild Geese and Tea—An Asian American
Wedding Planner
Weddings, Dating, and Love
Customs of Cultures Worldwide, Including Royalty