Anatomy Of A Chinese Wedding (III)

We now come to the most important part of any Chinese wedding - the dinner. The dinner is the usually both the climax, and the closing ceremony, if you will, of the Chinese wedding. All of the couple's planning will culminate in this event, after which they can finally kick off their shoes, and spend time together as husband and wife, the events of the past few days a sweet memory to look back on, rather than a stressful time to look forward to.

(Sorry for being unromantic, but weddings can be fairly stressful events!)

In Malaysia, especially, the guests will saunter in past the time indicated on the invitation cards (6.30 pm sharp!), so the couple will often make a fashionably late entrance at about 8.00 pm to much fanfare. One couple I heard about was brave enough to start fifteen minutes later than the allocated time, so only half the wedding hall was filled when they walked in!

The Chinese wedding dinner itself will be of a standard eight course meal (I have heard of a thirteen course one, which I think is unnecessarily extravagant, and will require lots of ta-pauing). A typical Chinese wedding dinner menu will look like this:

i) The opening entree platter - The four (or five) seasons platter. This dish has four different hors d'oeuvres which are meant to represent the four (what is the fifth season?) seasons - spring, summer, winter and autumn.
ii) A soup. This traditionally is the sharks' fin soup (Poor sharks. Poor yummy sharks.) or the double boiled soup.
iii) Chicken. Or suckling pig, if you've got a fully non-halal (kosher) guest list.
iv) Prawns. The usual standard is the custard prawns (lai yau ha) though I have seen cold salad prawns as well.
v) Fish. This is usually steamed with soya sauce, although the one we went to had a very nice spicy Pattaya sauce variant.
vi) Vegetables. Lavish vegetables cooked well. One for the vegetarians. Unless sea cucumbers are animals (are they?)
vii) This is usually rice of some semblance - fried or steamed in lotus leaves. By this time you're usually so full you don't care.
viii) Dessert - can be cold (longan jelly) or warm (red bean with fried pastries).



The dinner itself is a noisy, festive event. Especially if either the bride or bridegroom are Hokkien.

Giveaways that you're at a Hokkien wedding dinner

1. There is a loud boorish wedding singer who has been hired for the occasion. He or she is very good at working the crowd, and can sing My Heart Will Go On in three different languages.

2. There's an uncle who must have been dragged here by his wife who is conspicuously uninterested in the fact that you're getting married. How do you know that? He is reading newspapers at your wedding.

3. You have uncles or aunties who insist on blessing your wedding with select irrelevant songs sung by them. They try their best, bless their souls.

4. One of the compulsory songs is "Ai Pia Cia Eh Yeah" (In Order to Win, You Must Try Hard.) Which I suppose means that in order to win children, the couple must try their hardest. No, I'm making that one up - I honestly don't know what that song is doing in a wedding dinner. Here is a (not-so-cheesy, if you can believe it) sample:



All the sincere singing of songs aside, there's the important, beautiful bits - the speech by the bride and the groom, and the speech by the parents of the bride and groom. This is one of the few moments in a wedding where the clanging of chopsticks against porcelain bowls will quieten down to a minimum, and where the uncle will (hopefully) put down his newspaper.

There is also the cake cutting ceremony and the popping of the champagne bottles. The wedding singer at this point will interject with sweet words of the significance of both ceremonies. The champagne is then poured into glasses, and the climax of the wedding then begins - the Yam Seng.

The Yam Seng is the loud and raucous part of the Chinese wedding dinner, where the guests all unite in one voice to wish the bride and groom all the best. This part of the wedding is usually lead by the emcee or the wedding singer, and follows three rounds of wishes:

1) To the bride and groom and their families. For a long happy marriage together, through thick and thin, and for wealth, health and happiness.
2) To the bride and groom. To the pitter-patter of tiny feet, a euphemism for many, many, many children. (At this point the bride will lose her smile. And look terrified.)
3) From the bride and groom. To all those who have taken the time and travelled from near and far to grace their wedding. Even the newspaper reading uncle.

Each wish is then ended with a unified, protracted Yaaaaammmmm Seeeennnggggg!!! from both the families and all the guests. This is a glorious part of the wedding, as the whole restaurant literally reverberates with the well wishes of the guests, and there are always smiles all around.

The poor bride and groom don't actually get to eat much after that, as they will be going from table to table, thanking people for coming, and there will be intermittent episodes of Yam Seng from each individual table as the well wishes continue.

Unless there are faithful groomsmen by his side to take the gulps of wine after each Yam Seng for him, you can bet that the groom will be pretty drunk by this stage. The bride will be smiling through her third change of dress for the night, and be praying at this stage that her new husband will not embarrass her too much tonight, or vomit all over her evening dress. The good bride is supportive and will not care at all, happy that everyone is having a good time.

The night finally dwindles to a close, and the bride and groom and their parents are outside the banquet hall, waiting to thank all the guests for coming. There are hugs and handshakes, and as the last of the guests leave, both families will sit down, heaving a sigh of relief that the night is finally, successfully over.

And the groom will reach out and gently grab his bride's hands, look into her eyes, smile and then vomit onto her evening dress.