CHINESE BRIDES AND WEDDINGS.
One morning some of my party were standing by the window of a friend’s house in Canton which overlooks the canal with its brown water and crowd of sampans. As they watched the different phases of domestic life in those habitations, one of the party, familiar with them, remarked that there was probably a wedding, or rather the festivities attendant upon a wedding, in one of the nearest sampans, as she had heard a young woman wailing the night before. She said it is a custom with Chinese brides to pass the night before their weddings in bewailing their future troubles; for as they seldom see their intended masters before the wedding, there is great uncertainty in connection with their new mode of life; generally it is going from one form of servitude into one to which they had not grown accustomed. There seems to be no real wedding ceremony, but a feast and a sort of reception for three days. During that time the young couple perform some acts of devotion before the ancestral tablets. After that the bridegroom takes his partner to his father’s boat, where she cooks the rice, scrubs, and helps row for the rest of her life.
The young ladies thought that they would go to the reception. Accordingly, eight of them crowded into the sampan (being told that no cards were used) and sat in Turkish fashion on the nice floor. The bride came before them in a red dress, saluted them, then brought in a tray of square cakes, which had been made with peanut oil. She then gave them tea in small cups such as children play with. They considered that as the tea was made with the foul water of the canal occupied by a crowd of sampans, it could not be in the highest degree tasteful. As they went out they were told that the adjoining boat was the home of the bridegroom’s father, where the bride would the next day find her home. A roasted pig with its garniture of herbs was exposed on deck, but it did not awaken any desire.