How traditions can give "face" and goose bumps to a 老外 (lǎowài) :

Yu Bo aka Kelly, one of my colleagues, and her boyfriend Hong Yan got married!


Yep, another one of my teammates, most of them younger than me (Cindy, another workmate of mine put this on her BLOG in the following, lovely way: [...] 当时看到他的时候觉得想不到他只是比我大两岁[...] or as much as "When I saw him [me] he looked more than only two years [our actual age difference] older than me".. well, well, it must have been the jet lag.. ;)) got married, or as Yumna, an Indian friend of mine announcing her upcoming wedding (yes!) put it, "bit the dust" ^^
For me, Yu Bo and Hong Yan's wedding meant at least the following:

• People way younger than me can do it... I might wanna start thinking about it myself... start thinking, I said.. ;)
• I got to enjoy once more the opportunity to participate in a Chinese wedding and all the traditions that come along. I've written some more about these traditions and how I experienced them in previous post about the first Chinese wedding, Rena's, that I had the chance to attend.
  
• Gaining "face" at the cost of quite some goose bumps..

What do I mean with the latter? Well, in China there is this tradition saying that the father or mother as well as the manager of the bride, respectively the groom get to do a little speech. I also found out about this only a day before the wedding when Kelly called me up around 9pm to ask me if I, having been her direct manager, would do that on behalf of her. "Absolutely" I had already responded, when I thought: Wait, I guess that should be in Chinese then? "Yes", she responded, giggled and told me that "I would do great"..

A little nervous? Yep, my goose bumps bore a strange ressemblance with the Himalayas, but hey, this was a great complement to my usual, relatively very boring, Chinese studying, with books, flashcards and the like... Once back from a Friday night out I got my act together, gathered my thoughts and was super happy that Echo had the patience to have a serious go at them ^^

Well then, I stumbled, fumbled and had a little big helper (check out the size of my notes.. ;)). But hey, it was great to hear the happy cheering after the first 3 Chinese words the lǎowài (the semi endearing term often used by Chinese to refer to foreigners. The Chinese "gringo"..) had uttered and to be able to say right there, how much I appreciated to work with and be a friend of Kelly!


Disregarding the fact that I am not Chinese, Kelly made me gain quite a bit of "face" and I was happy and ready to down a glas of 'good' old Baijiu with Hong Yan ^^ Oh, one more thing: yes, the tradition of throwing the bouquet has become an integral part even of Chinese weddings. Kelly threw it and guess who caught it... Vivi, another work mate of mine... Do I hear another wedding coming up soon..? ;)

china, chinese wedding, culture, exoweb, beijing