Can someone help me with the book I'm writing?

[Jemima]

Well, it is a Christian wedding I'm thinking of. Not the actual marriage, I know that's mostly about signing a paper.  

Since Christianity in China is mostly underground, would the ceremony be "borrowed" from western traditions then?

[Angelina]

Since Christianity in China is mostly underground, would the ceremony be "borrowed" from western traditions then?

 

It's complicated too. Catholicism is not underground I think.  

[Demonic_Duck]

There are two state-sanctioned versions of Christianity, I forget the names of them, but one is a branch of Protestantism and the other is a weird bastard child of Catholecism that doesn't recognise the pope. There are also semi-underground "house churches", which may technically be banned but seem to get away with it as long as they're not too big.

 

I've never been to a Chinese church as I'm not a Christian, so I can't really provide much more insight than that.

[liuzhou]

 

Catholicism is not underground I think.

 

Most of it is.

 

 

 

Nevertheless, the wedding tradition is still totally different.

[Jemima]

Google is my friend. Apparently the Christian part of the wedding ceremonies in China are very similar to western weddings. They have a morning ceremony in a restaurant or something (not in a church because the Christians in house churches don't like the official state churches). The bride wears a white gown and the groom a tuxedo or suit.
But after that ceremony they usually have the Chinese ceremonies too, like the afternoon tea ceremony where the bride gets to call the grooms parents mom and dad. And in the evening it's the traditional Chinese dinner and the bride changes clothes to traditional clothes.

[liuzhou]

What?

 

Nothing like any Chinese wedding I've ever heard of. Christian or not.

[Hofmann]

A lot like the Chinese Christian weddings I've attended.

[Jemima]

Proposals, are they in reality like in the Chinese movies and dramas? The man kneeling in front of the woman etc? Or is that just America-inspired fiction?

[Angelina]

It's De Beers inspired fiction. 

[Jemima]

De Beers?

[imron]

Diamond company.

[Jemima]

Oh. Yeah, it seems to be a lot of product placement in the dramas lol. So, no romantic propsals in real life then? 

[Lu]

China is very big, Chinese culture has changed enormously in the past decades, and so there is huge variety in wedding ceremonies and proposals. I have never heard of the 'man on one knee presenting a diamond ring'-proposal, but I have no doubt that there are plenty of Chinese couples who have done this. At the same time there are without a doubt plenty of Chinese couples who just reach the decision to get married and then do so, or even whose parents decide for them that it's time they get married.

 

Marriage in China is usually split into two parts: the official part and the social part.

For the official part, the couple simply goes to the wedding registry bureau and registers as married. I haven't personally witnessed this, but I think it has about as much ceremony as applying for a new ID card, which is to say, close to none.

The social part is what counts, and only after you've held a wedding banquet you're really considered married in the eyes of your family, your friends and the world in general. How exactly this happens varies with class, region, amount of money available and preferences of bride and groom. It can involve making a bow to the respective parents-in-law, but I've been at one where they had found a (non-Chinese, non-marriage-related) official to do the whole 'do you, [name of groom], take [name of bride] to be your lawful wedded etc', except he left out the 'with the power invested in me by XYZ I now pronounce you husband and wife', probably because he did not in fact have such power invested in him. If the couple is any kind of Christian, they'll probably do a Christian ceremony. Often such wedding banquets are not just for the couple, but for their parents as well, who can invite their own friends and (business) relations (guanxi).

 

For the future and another planet, I think you can be creative with the proposal and the registry, but you'll want some form of wedding banquet.

 

I hope this is of some help, let us know if you have more questions.

[Shelley]

I am no expert but in traditional culture you didn't usually choose who you marry, so getting down on one knee is not part of traditional proposals, there would be matchmaker in each village who's job it was to work out all the varies parameters and auspicious portents to figure out that child a will marry child b. This may be done when the children are quite young, and both families would sort out dowries etc. When they were of a suitable age they were married.

 

its not quite like a forced arranged marriage because you would get to know each other just because you lived in the same village etc.

 

Also I don't think if you wanted to marry someone else it would not be very easy and there was a lot of elopements.

[Jemima]

Thanks a lot.  

[imron]

Marriage in China is usually split into two parts: the official part and the social part.

Keep in mind as well that these two parts can happen months apart.  I have friends who were legally married for over a year before having the social banquet.

[liuzhou]

 

Keep in mind as well that these two parts can happen months apart.  I have friends who were legally married for over a year before having the social banquet.

 

I've known much longer. One good friend has been legally married for six years, has two kids (yes, I know)  and still hasn't had the banquet. She is a bit of a career woman currently studing for a PhD, so gets busy combining that with motherhood. She keeps telling me "Soon!"

[Jemima]

Me again, another question... anyone who knows about what kind of food they eat in the military? 

[imron]

It's the future, so why not make up some futuristic food type e.g. the matrix's 'single celled protein combined with synthetic aminos, vitamins, and minerals' or Firefly's 'protein in all the colours of the rainbow'

[Demonic_Duck]

Or soylent green. Delicious soylent green.