Single Professional Women in AsiaAftermath - Wedding in ShanxiWedding in ShanXi, ChinaChinese Wedding CustomsChinese and American Marriage - Who Pays? | Learning Chinese Language Materials for Kids

Single Professional Women in Asia

The Economist has a great article about how marriage is changing in Asia, “The Flight from Marriage.” Basically many women are deciding not to get married and keep on working. Japan, Korea, and Taiwan are at the front of this trend. In Taiwan in 2002, for a while 27% of marriages involved foreign women (China and Vietnam).

The big question is what happens in China with the huge gender imbalance of 118 boys born to 100 girls?

I was surprised that a person they interviewed was not actually working as a phychologist, but had studied it, and had gone back to work in the PR industry.

Labels: chinese weddings, family

Aftermath - Wedding in Shanxi

It seems the central government has decided to reduce the influence of private business in the cooal mining business in ShanXi. China is turning independent coal mines into state-run operations, showing its impatience with private companies that get too big. - News Week

I believe this is a much better explanation. The excess shown in this post brought a reaction from the central government. Wedding in ShanXi, China. Ferrari's as escort cars. Roll Royce Phantom. And the wedding parade was filmed.

Another wedding had:

6 Jeeps as camera team
4 Ferrari leads
4 Rolls Royce main fleet
6 Mercedes
6 Bentleys
20 Audi A
8 Hummer's

Labels: chinese corruption, chinese weddings

Wedding in ShanXi, China

Unbelievable... Wedding in ShanXi, China

Excesses such as done in the robber baron era in the US in the 19th century.

Labels: chinese weddings

Chinese Wedding Customs

A new article on EliteDresses.com about Chinese Wedding Customs that includes:

Birth Dates & Family Tree,
Formal Gifts for Bride's Family
Bridal Bed
Vising the Bride on Wedding Day
Wedding Banquet,
Monetary gift to Bride & Groom

Labels: chinese weddings

Chinese and American Marriage - Who Pays?

Wall Street Journal article this morning that got me thinking - Who Paid for the Wedding? Why the Answer Can Rankle

In US culture, it's the bride's parents who pay. In Chinese culture, it's the grooms parents who pay.

So what did my wife and I do? Mixing the Chinese/Taiwan tradition with American. We paid for it ourself and had a small wedding. My wife wore a beautiful QiPal Chinese Dress as well as an amazing traditional white wedding dress with lots of ribbons. I believe here dress has a Peach on it which has some symbolic meaning. I suggested a Red Wedding Dress to be more traditional, but got shot down. Red is the traditional color worn by the bride. The comment I got back was in her grandmother's time maybe, but not now. I even saw a picture of my in-laws where both of them were in Western Style Wedding garments in the early 60's. Our wedding cake was a carrot cake which was delicious, but I understand not traditional for either Chinese or American.

For Chinese and Vietnamese Weddings, the hope is the Red Envelopes given at the traditional dinner banquet will pay for the wedding and honeymoon. Of course when you get many non Chinese/Vietnamese guests, the economics of that does not work and you may end up with a lot of coffee makers and crock pots (I am probably dating myself with the crock pot reference).

Labels: chinese customs, chinese weddings

Monday, August 29, 2011