Teochew ger Adri offers a glimpse into that mysterious social phenomenon known as the Chinese Wedding.
Ah, the memories of our Cantonese wedding, of the giant roast pig, the qipao my wife loathed to wear (but in the end looked lovely in), and dad's friends who had too much to drink, all come flooding back.
Excerpt:
We all know the gold is the most important part of any Teochew marriage. If you hope to marry a Teochew girl (this author included), you can forget about it if you refuse this – no question about it. The four points of gold (si dian jin, or si diam kim) is compulsory. A pair of earrings, a necklace, a bracelet. Some years ago, I’d caused an uproar by announcing I’d like to have something in platinum instead from Tiffany, preferably, rather than the usual stuff from Tianpoh.
Their conversations went from the traditional into the incredulous. The mother revealed she had been in Chinatown shopping for a cistern for her daughter, and said so without batting an eyelid. All of us, my own mother included, were wide-eyed at this: a cistern? I was under the impression my generation was among the last to remember the cistern – the tam pui, as it is more affectionately known. Heavy, fragile pot in the shape of a glorified vase; usually in hues of red, white and embellished with elaborate floral motifs in Chinese style. The last of us vividly recall sitting on one before the age of six, while concerned family members attempted to solve our constipation problems, in DIY fashion. Even in those days, we had proper toilets for all other purposes. And in 2004 a mother buys a cistern as part of her daughter’s wedding set?
As if she noticed my fear, my mother tells me she fully expects I move into a house with a modern bathroom if I do marry, that she does not endeavour to hunt down cisterns for me in antique shops, Chinatown or not. For that, I had to tell her I loved her.
