Groomsman at a Rural Chinese Wedding

This week I attended my third wedding in China. This was far and away the most interesting of the three weddings. The first two were in cities and mostly consisted of a banquet and nothing else. This one was in the countryside. I traveled several hours by bus to get there. Most importantly, in this wedding I was the 伴郎 (groomsman). 

Reminder: as always, see the full set of pictures at my flickr website

I didn't actually know the groom very well at all. But the bride and I have been friends for some time. She's the owner and manager of a massage shop in Kunming that I've been a regular customer at for a year and a half. Together with some of the girls in the shop, we'd gone out together several times in Kunming. I was quite honored when she asked me to be the groomsman at her wedding. I was a bit confused at first why me and not one of the grooms' friends, but I later realized that Chinese couples almost always hold two weddings, one for the bride's family and one for the groom's. This was for the bride's family, and the groom probably simply didn't have any other male friends in the village, so they asked me. I'm sure having a foreigner as groomsman is a novelty that's worth some face as well. 

The bride and groom in her hometown, Mohei, Pu'er

The bridge, 王萍 (Wang Ping) comes from a village just outside of the town of 磨黑 (Mohei), in 宁洱县 (Ning'er County), 普洱州 (Pu'er Prefecture), about 6 hours south of Kunming on the road to Xishuangbanna, Laos, and Thailand. The town lies on one of the major transportation corridors in Yunnan province. In days of old, this was a major international trade route, and part of the network of "tea horse" roads. Pu'er is the production base of the eponymous pu'er tea, one of the most reknown teas in China. This is rich agricultural land, verdant and abundant not just with tea, but also rice, wheat, and tropical fruit. 

countryside around Wang Ping's village

Wang Ping's village

Wang Ping's village from on top of the mountain

The road from Kunming to Mohei has already been transformed into a freeway. It took some amazing feats of engineering to build a freeway through topography as challenging as this. Nearly the entire route is thick with mountains and deep river valleys. Tunnels and bridges make up a good portion of the route. Barreling down the freeway in a bus in an exhilarating experience. There lies about a 100 km gap in the freeway through the heart of Pu'er Prefecture. Mohei lies right at the place where the freeway ends and traffic is diverted to the old road. The viaducts of the new freeway already pierce right through Mohei town, and by the end of 2011 the new freeway should be open, reducing the diversion traffic on the old road.

Wang Ping's uncles told me they're used to seeing foreigners riding bicycles through their town, on their way from Kunming to Xishuangbanna. Most of them don't speak English, they say. They laugh as they explain that when they see foreigners on bicycles they yell "Hello! Nice to Meet You!"

Wang Ping's family is 哈尼族 (Hani ethnicity), the same ethnicity as the friends I stayed with two weeks back in Honghe County. But unlike those Hani, Wang Ping's family don't speak the Hani language. They explain this is because they have been more or less 汉化 (Hanicized, or influenced by the majority Han ethnic group). Mohei contains a mix of ethnicities, and they use regular Chinese as the common language. Although they may be Hanicized, the wedding still contained many traditional elements. 

The day before the wedding there were lots of tasks to help with. First thing in the morning, Wang Ping's several uncles slaughtered a pig (I didn't help with that task). Later, we hiked up a nearby mountain, cut down several bamboo poles, and carried them back to the house. On the patio we used the bamboo to build the frame of what would become a kind of tent for the after-party. After the frame was complete, we built a roof out of leaves and branches.

building the bamboo caonpy

slaughtering the pig

The banquet would be held in the basket court of the village. Adjacent is large kitchen capable of cooking large quantities of food just for occasions like this. It was explained to me that in any given year there might be dozens of weddings, and that at each wedding pretty much every villager attends. Wang Ping has lived in Kunming for the last ten years. As is common in small towns and villagers like hers, Wang Ping left home after graduating middle school at sixteen years old. She worked as a waitress in restaurants, then giving massages, and because she's smart and hardworking she was able to build up a business of her own. Although she'd come home occasionally for holidays, she explained that most of the villagers aren't too familiar with her. Nevertheless, they would all come to her wedding, which is more about her family gaining face than it is about her and her husband. Everyone in the village, after all, knows her parents. 

We went shopping in the town market, loading up giant rucksacks full of vegetables, then back to the basketball court kitchen do peel, cut, and chop. 

Over the course of the four days I spent in her village, I got to know several of Wang Ping's many relatives. Apart from the wedding banquet itself, when there would be several hundred guests, there were many other meals attended by all the relatives, which in total were several dozen. Some live in the village, some came from other places in the province for the occasion. Of her several younger cousins, none had gone further than middle school. The highest level school in the town is a middle school. The best students might go on to the high school in the county seat 30 km away, but this is not common. There were several girls in the 16-18 age range; they all worked as waitresses. 

the bride and groom, several of the bride's relatives, and me at the bride's old middle school

The afternoon before the wedding day, two musicians arrived. They were 唢呐 (suona) players. They would spend the next 36 hours serenading us with suona music. The suona looks like a cross between a clarinet, oboe, and recorder. It has a double reed, open hole keys, and a curved bell. Its sound is high pitched and nasally, not the most beautiful sound in the world, but added ethnic texture to the proceedings. Every thirty minutes or so, from dawn to late at night, the suona players would break out into song.

The morning of the wedding a second pig was slaughtered. Less than an hour later I was invited to try some fresh grilled pork of the barbecue. I have to admit, it was some of the best pork I've tasted in my life. 

I had some time to kill so I went for a morning walk through the nearby countryside. The fields were bursting with verdant green stalks of wheat, forming waist-high blankets of green, punctuated by purple wildflowers, on the terraced slopes.

By mid-morning the videographer had arrived Wang Ping had changed into her elegant 旗袍 (traditional cheongsam dress), the groom was in his suit, and it was time for me to don my suit as well. We spent about an hour blowing up balloons. Then lunch, then piled into minivans decorated in balloons and drove off to the county seat half an hour down the old road. The suona players sat in the back of a pickup truck which drove in front of the bridal van, serenading us all along the way. Once in the county seat, the bridal procession drove around in a few aimless circles so that all the townspeople could see. Then we went to the beauty salon so the bride could get her hair done. The groom got his hair done too (with glitter), and so did I. At this point the bride changed into a traditional western wedding gown and we went to the town plaza to take pictures. On the way back to Mohei, stopped a reservoir to take more pictures.

the suona players in the truck leading the wedding procession

Around five o'clock, the bride, groom, maid of honor, and I lined up at the entrance of the basketball court to greets guests as they arrived. The maid of honor held a tray of sunflower seeds, peanuts, and candy, and I held a tray of cigarettes, as is the custom at every Chinese wedding. Wang Ping's family members manned the table recording the amount of money given by each guest. They explained that this is so that when they are guests that their neighbors' weddings they can give the respective amount.

the bride and groom, her parents, and the bridesmaid and me greeting guests

The wedding feast was bountiful of course, with fresh pork, fish, and several vegetable dishes. Following dinner we went back to the house and started the evening's real festivities - drinking and dancing under the bamboo canopy. The dances were all traditional Hani ethnic dances, and everyone was impressed that I picked up the moves so quickly.

wedding banquet

As the evening wore on, the young people crowded into the bridal suite (a room in the house that had been painted and decorated specially for the bride and groom on their wedding night). This would be the roasting of the bride and groom, a tradition that many young Chinese couples practice on their wedding night, and which I don't believe exists in the States. The bride and groom are forced to play several games, usually with some sexual overtones. For example, a blindfolded groom with a chopstick wedged between his thighs has to insert it into a beer bottle wedged between the bride's thighs. Or the bride and groom have to simultaneously reach for a sunflower seed being dangled by a string with their mouths. Or the bride must use her mouth to manipulate an egg inside the groom's trousers from one foot to the other. In one game the bride has to whip the groom in some light S&M like situation. All the while, all the cousins and kids are crowded around watching. It's all very silly and everyone's drinking. 

friends and relatives watching the "roasting of the bride and groom"

bride playing a raunchy game involving an egg in the groom's trousers during the "roasting of the bride and groom"

All evening long, my responsibility as groomsman is to drink on behalf of the groom so that he doesn't get too drunk. The drink of choice of course is baijiu, the wretched 100 proof homemade alcohol that men in Chinese villages consume by the gallon. Two weeks earlier in Honghe County my tolerance for baijiu was very low. Over the course of four days in Mohei, I think it went up considerably. 

The day after the wedding, I spent the majority of the day with some of the girls from the massage shop. One of them, whom they call "Fourth Sister" (四姐) because she's the youngest of four sisters in her family. She comes from a village about 45 minutes away from Wang Ping's village. We went shopping in the town market, then with several of her family members climbed up the mountain behind her village to the tea fields on top. There we barbecued fish, pork, and chicken. One her her uncles chopped down some bamboo poles, split them open, and filled them with rice and water. The result, after grilling over the barbecue, was bamboo-scented rice! Down the mountain, another meal at Fourth Sister's house while watching a DVD of her wedding a few years earlier. She's divorced now, she explained, because her husband was a 酒鬼 (literally "alcohol monster", but better translated as "drunk", prone to fighting and whoring. 

bamboo rice

After the previous night's happy wedding, watching Fourth Sister's wedding video was a little strange. But she was in a good mood, hosting me and our friends, and that night she cooked a massive meal with twelve dishes. After dinner (and more baijiu) we went to Mohei town's only karaoke club. Karaoke in small towns like this is a much less fancy affair than karaoke in the big city. And they didn't even have my favorite song. But nevermind. Everyone was happy and it was a memorable last evening in Mohei, Pu'er. 

Next morning had to get a ride to Ning'er County seat to catch the bus back to Kunming. What had taken just 30 minutes two days before in the wedding vans took an hour and forty minutes this early morning. The two lane mountain road was clogged with terrible truck traffic. Apparently, this happens every morning, when the trucks which spend the night where the freeway ends continue on their journey to Xishuangbanna and Laos. We barely made the bus, then had to wait in the same traffic on the way back. Seven long hours later finally reached Kunming. A very memorable trip indeed!

Reminder: as always, see the full set of pictures at my flickr website