What does a traditional Tibetan wedding look like?

Living in the Tibetan area for so long, I have attended many weddings, big and small.

Even so, I still feel that the most festive and lively time of the year is the time when I go to the village to attend the wedding.

Sometimes, I have the illusion that winter in the highlands is the wedding season.

Every winter, the sky of the plateau, blue without a trace of clouds. The land becomes bare and burnt yellow. The sun shines on the body, there is a lazy sense of comfort.

At this time, it is as if everything is dormant.

In the midst of nature's rest and relaxation, people begin to welcome the revelry of life.

The wedding I remember most is the one where I was a bridesmaid for the first time.

On that occasion, during the intermission, the friends of the bride and groom started to make a fuss and asked the bridesmaids to go up and sing. So, at the invitation of the bride's father, I fearlessly went up on stage to sing a song called "Tibetan Plateau".

In my voice and very committed to sing, but also led the applause to themselves. Then, I saw that the whole audience laughed on the table, and even some of them were laughing and pounding the table.

So, I became famous.

You know, the bride and groom are the most professional singers in Shangri-La!

A traditional Tibetan wedding is usually a three-day affair.

The first day, for the "help", friends and family to help prepare for the second day of the wedding all the trivial.

The second day, the main guest, that is, the day of the wedding.

On this day, a series of traditional rituals take place, along with a feast for the guests.

On the night of the wedding, there will be all-night dancing until dawn.

On the third day, it's basically family and friends helping to clean up.

The most joyous moment of any wedding you've ever attended in Tibet, no matter what ethnicity, Tibetan, Naxi, Lisu, etc., is the dancing.

However, the moment of dancing is different in each region, some in the morning of the wedding day, some in the middle of the wedding day, and some in the evening of the wedding day.

During the dance, people hold hands in a circle, men on one side and women on the other, and dance and sing to each other.

Each of the men and women has a song leader, basically an old man who is familiar with all kinds of ditties.

One side sings a ditty first, and the other side has to figure out how to sing the chorus when the other side sings the chorus. Otherwise, it's a loss.

Sometimes, there's dancing until dawn.

If the most joyous moment is the dancing, the most touching moment is surely the moment when the elders offer the newlyweds a hatha.

In every wedding, there is a ceremony in the middle that is essential, which is the admonition and blessing of the elders to the newlyweds.

After the bride is received at the groom's house, the elders will offer a khaddar to the newlyweds and while doing so, they will say some words of blessing.

One of the most important parts of the wedding would be the eating.

On the day of the main guest, the flowing banquet is almost never cold from morning to evening.

Almost everyone in the village who can help comes over to help, dividing up the work and preparing all the food needed for the feast.

There are usually four feasts: breakfast, lunch, dinner and midnight snack.

Breakfast is a traditional Tibetan breakfast of ghee tea, fried poi, and handmade cakes.

Every time I eat and drink ghee tea with my in-laws, although the language is not the same, however, the in-laws will always say, "Eat, eat, eat......"

There is basically no difference between lunch, dinner and snack. They were all various stews made from the village's own pigs, cows and sheep.

Sometimes, at wedding feasts, there were all sorts of never-before-seen foods. Treebeard, for example. Treebeard, with its particularly graphic name, looks like a beard that grows from a large, particularly old tree. I originally thought it was a vine-like growth from the trunk of a large tree, but later realized it was some kind of tree root that had been harvested and soaked. The tree beard is served cold with kelp, and the moment you eat it in your mouth, it's as if you've instantly eaten an entire forest and ocean.

Wedding banquets, in addition to mountain treasures, the least of which is a variety of meat. Almost every wedding banquet has ham. Every winter, families start to invite pig-killing guests. On the day of the invitation, the pigs that have been raised for several years will be killed, and in addition to the big feast, the remaining parts will be made into blood sausage, preserved pork ribs, ham and so on, and the most delicious one is ham. Whether it is steamed or boiled, ham has a unique countryside flavor. Sometimes I wonder why ham is so delicious. In addition to its own raw and fresh ingredients, perhaps the more important thing is that these things are the whole village, the whole family, all the people together to do. In the whole production process, not only has some kind of traditional craft, but also accumulated human wisdom and affection.

I think the reason why I like attending weddings so much, apart from the singing and dancing and drinking, is the strong sense of human feelings that all this shows.