Focus
Wedding etiquette can be a heavy burden for younger generation
By Wang Wei (China Daily)
Updated: 2010-03-04 10:52
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Attending a wedding should be a happy and romantic occasion. But it can also be a heavy cash outlay for those invited to many wedding banquets.
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 Two parents give their son-in-law hong bao during his wedding. Giving hong bao is a very important part of Chinese etiquette. |
Zhang Ran, 28, an admin employee for a law firm has a monthly income of around 3,000 yuan ($439).
She told METRO that she attended eight wedding banquets last year and gave 5,000 yuan as wedding hong bao (red envelopes), more than 10 percent of her annual income.
"I really love to share the happiest moment in the newly weds' life, but I often receive invitations from colleagues, or people who I am not really that close to. I don't want to go, but since I am invited, I have to go and give them wedding hong bao," she said. "I don't want to lose face."
Giving hong bao is a very important part of Chinese etiquette.
Handing over red envelopes filled with money to the wedding host is a longstanding tradition in China with many rules attached, and the amount of money given to a new couple is a science - the number varies in accordance with one's financial status and the level of intimacy with the newly weds.
The common practice in Beijing (it varies from city to city) is 300 to 500 yuan for colleagues, 500 to 1,000 yuan for friends and 5,000 to 10,000 yuan for relatives.
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In fact numbers ending with six, eight and nine are preferred, because the pronunciation of six in Chinese is similar to that of things going smoothly, eight sounds like wealth and nine sounds like longevity.
When it comes to wedding gifts, according to Zheng, there are also many rules.
Never choose umbrellas, clocks or books as gifts, because the san in yu san (the Chinese for umbrella) means crumble or disintegrate; the Chinese word for clock sounds like termination and that for book sounds like loss.
The tradition of red envelopes is also a problem for those who receive them, because eventually they have to find an occasion to reciprocate.
One newly wed, who married during the spring festival and who received 30,000 yuan in wedding money, said, "I made notes about how much money I got and from whom in an account book, so that in the future I can pay back everyone who gave me money for my marriage."
"I don't want to owe people," he explained.
According to the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Statistics 181,000 people registered for marriage in 2009, double the number in 2001.
