Hakka wedding prose

First, the wedding night

Cousin niece called to say that her wedding date has been set, asked me to go back to accompany her in any case, "the night of the wedding", I happily agreed. The so-called "crying marriage night" is a traditional custom and culture passed down from generation to generation by our Hakka people. Now it's a new century, a new era, many traditional cultures have been weathered by the rapidly developing society. My hometown, which has left unlimited joyful memories of my childhood, has also fallen into the embarrassment of being a non-city and a non-village due to the change of development needs. Many traditional customs and cultures have disappeared under the impact of modern culture. However, the Hakka women get married when the "crying marriage night" although a simple and then simple, but so far for this reason, or source with the preservation of.

According to my mother, their era of "crying marriage night" is a very grand link before the wedding. Is held before the wedding of a special ceremony, the bride to cry three nights, in order to put on the wedding clothes, on the sedan chair married into the husband's family. Here said "cry", not really crying, bawling, is sobbing like crying. With modern words to understand, this "crying" should be the tears of confession. The first night, the village girls and young daughters-in-law, will be gathered in the bride's home, taking turns to accompany the bride in the boudoir song. The content of the song is the sisters' feelings of attachment, only that it is not a simple conversation exchange, but with the Hakka Mountain Songs unique to the Hakka people to sing, the lyrics are thinking of what to sing, as the heart of the song, singing, singing, the kind of sisterly feelings of attachment to the overflow, the thought of separation, the tears are very natural flow of non-stop. The second night, is the bride's aunt and sisters-in-law and her song, sing the content is also arbitrary, however, is mainly educational, mainly to teach the bride on the wedding day, to pay attention to the complexity of the etiquette of the insults. On the third night, it was the mother who made a grand appearance, with the sisters listening in, and the content of the mother's song was to teach the bride to marry into her husband's family, how to respect and courtesy to serve her in-laws, and to be courteous to her sister-in-laws and uncles; and how to uphold the Hakka women's frugality, family, and virtue of the pure nature of the Hakka women. As the mother is afraid of her daughter married away after the aggression, the daughter is also afraid of not adapting to the life of the husband's family, at this time, is the most sincere mother-daughter heart to heart exchanges, love to the true place tears. Therefore, these three nights are called "crying marriage night", I caught up with the good times, was born in the late 1970s, all of this is to listen to my mother's story, I have not really experienced.

My sister is more than ten years older than me, she was married in her twenties at the end of the eighties, I was only ten years old, I remember the "night of the weeping bride", there is no mom said the song, perhaps my sister's generation of sisters are not very good at singing songs, but will sing the red, Anita Mui and Teresa Teng's songs. However, when they got together to chat on the night of the wedding, and mom repeated the same teaching, my sister still cried, and there was attachment to us, and there was confusion about being a wife, and tears are very infectious, my sister wept, and mom wept, and the sisters who stayed with her also wept. At that time, I was young and uninformed, and yelled: "What's wrong with you guys, there's nothing to cry about when you get married, if you want to cry, don't get married." Sisters at once uproarious tease me, said: "small pull (sort of my nickname, the Hakka people on the youngest child's name), then you later married, you will not cry ah." I answered as a matter of course: "Of course I won't cry, if I want to cry, I won't get married." I didn't realize that when I got married more than ten years ago, I wasn't as graceful as I was when I was a child, and I still couldn't help crying. The reason for this is that my mother also taught me as she taught my sister, and my sister also taught me what I should pay attention to as a daughter-in-law and a wife. There were also two hardcore classmates who came back from far away to attend the wedding and kept blaming me for stepping into the siege so soon. Perhaps I also had the same attachment to my parents as my sister did, and the same confused feelings I had when I became a wife, so the tears flowed uncontrollably. Later, "crying wedding night" accompanied by more, I gradually understand that it is not a question of whether you want to cry or not, but in the atmosphere of the bride's complex mood before the wedding, the tears are naturally flowing out of the infection. It should be said that the tears at that time, is that special atmosphere derived from the product.

In recent years, with the sisters of the "crying marriage night" with the social trend and change, now, generally do not get together in the house, but to the KTV to ask for a box, the sisters crazy to play a night to celebrate the bride from the end of the single, stepped into the siege, began a new life. Without the involvement of the older generation and the repetitive teaching of mothers and aunts, the atmosphere is not heavy and becomes light and relaxed. Therefore, the modern Hakka people's "night of crying" has been in vain, no more crying, which is good, let the bride happy to get married.

Second, the wedding ceremony

The traditional culture of the Hakka people, a long history, a long history, and marriage is known as one of the three major events of life, nature can not be sloppy. Although the modern society is a new era of new style, many of the old rules and regulations have been simplified, but there are still some local customs can not be deleted, must be done. Marriage in the city may save a lot of trouble, but in the countryside, do is still quite elaborate'. A side of the soil to raise a side of the people, marriage and other major events, in the eyes of our Hakka people, is sacred, can not be blasphemed, is not simply receive a red book so simple. Different regions have different customs. Now, I will use words, say our Hakka wedding culture. I come from the countryside, to what I know of the rural wedding culture etiquette, briefly introduced.

On the eve of marriage, the bride and groom must use pomelo leaves to soak in water to take a bath and wash their hair, meaning: clean and do adults. Then, after zero hour, pick a good time, cook three bowls of dumplings to God, and ask the village respected old lady to help comb the head, the Hakka language called: on the head, which is not a simple combing of the head, you have to go along with the hair, from the forehead to the back of the head, combed nine times, can not be more or less. Combing once the old man will read a sentence, a comb comb to gray hair eyebrows, two comb comb to children and grandchildren all over the place, three comb comb to wealth and honor, four comb comb to what ...... and so on. After combing nine times, the newcomer ate a bowl of dumplings, meaning that the life from now on round and full. Special note, this ritual is the same hour, the bride and groom were in their respective homes.

The wedding day, the bride must be a new inside and outside, the old jewelry all removed, put on a new one. No matter how beautiful hair comb, must be in the hair clip nine feet of red pompom rope, meaning: red head flower feet, the sky is the limit. After wearing a wedding dress, must be slung over the shoulder a flower red (red cloth or crushed red cloth), meaning that the days after the wedding red-hot, no matter how to wear a wedding dress or cheongsam, the waist must be donned with a needle wearing a red thread, which means: the red thread attracts phoenix to return to the open branch to spread the leaves to come. When the groom to meet the bride, the bride must be brother generation of relatives holding an umbrella, head holding a rice sieve, above the rice, red beans, peanuts and other things, and then, when out of the door, the umbrella of the rice to the house sprinkled with three, outside the house sprinkled with three, which means that after the wedding to take care of in-laws should take care of the mother's family also. The most important point is that after the bride leaves the door of her mother's house, she can only keep walking towards the groom and cannot look back. The moral is to live a long and happy life after marriage, and will not go back to the mother's home because of quarrels.

The groom to welcome the bride's team to the bride's home, the woman's sisters to give away the marriage will often ask the groom to sing, used to be a mountain song duet, now changed to sing popular songs. Then, call nine times the bride's name to pick up the bride. Along the way, the bride to calculate in advance, a **** how many bridges, how many red envelopes to prepare to bring on the body, because on the way back to the in-laws, every bridge, you have to throw a red envelope to the window outside the bridge, the implication is that the wedding road, only once. I feel that this is similar to the novel that you have to pass through this road and leave money to buy the road. When entering the door of the in-laws, the mother-in-law and sisters-in-law will hide, not directly meet with the bride, the moral is that after the wedding will not quarrel with each other. This should be people's good intentions, because I see a lot of them do not work.

At the beginning of the wedding banquet, the groom and the bride were to give each guest a toast to tea, send wedding candy, wedding cakes, married guests drink, send a red envelope, unmarried do not need. Nowadays, people are afraid of trouble, the newcomers together with a table of wine and tea to honor even if it happened. Wine and dine to the evening, the grand caveman began. Our Hakka language called "play the bride", because this play is purely for the bride, and the groom has nothing to do, but also can not help the bride. Playing is full of tricks, can not be introduced here. In short, it is difficult, but the bride can not lose her temper, only by their own wisdom and courage to break through. Play to the early hours of the morning, before setting off firecrackers, sent to the new room.

The first day of marriage, the bride must get up early, to do too much. To worship heaven and earth, worship ancestors, Hakka called: worship. To the new father-in-law new mother-in-law tea, followed by the elders of the same room, the village to help people. Then, you have to roll up your sleeves and fish out nine coins and nine pins in a big pot of dishwater prepared by people from the same village. The symbolism is to fish for silver, the Hakka word for coins is silver, and also to fish diligently is the same sound as hard work. Busy after all this, with the groom and the in-laws arranged seven or eight people back to the bride's home, commonly known as back to the door. Special attention is paid to the new son-in-law back to the door, is the day of the wedding, the father-in-law specifically write invitations, called to send the marriage of people sent to the groom's home, the seriousness of the invitation to the eight door, the upper paragraph is the name of the son-in-law, the name of the father-in-law, the contents of the roughly please eat and drink and so on. If the parents-in-law do not like the son-in-law's, they will not write invitations, and the new couple will not have to return to the door.

Chopping and snapping to knock the word so long, finally simple to introduce the Hakka wedding almost, I hope to see the audience on the Hakka wedding understanding. As an authentic Hakka woman, I have been influenced by Hakka culture since I was a child, and I hope that this traditional culture can be inherited in the new society which is changing rapidly, and be passed on from generation to generation.