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Silver Bells; here goes nothing!

Posted by ally (: (Singapore, Singapore) on 25 July 2007 in People & Portraits.

"Another more modern tradition occurs before the tea ceremony. The bride is hidden in a room and her attendants (called "sisters," even if the women are not biologically the bride's siblings) try to prevent the groom and his attendants ("brothers") from coming in to pick up the bride. They try to get the groom to bid for the bride, asking for money in 8s or 9s. They also ask the men (especially the groom) trivia questions, such as "where did you meet the bride?" Sometimes, the women would ask the groom and his attendants to write a poem about the bride or do silly tricks. At the end, the women are given money (in red packets) by the men."

source: Wikipedia, under Asian/Chinese Customs.

so yup, after reading that you now probably understand better why the groom's expression is as such. honestly, he wasn't tortured all that much. all he had to do was:
1) list 10 reasons why he loved my cousin, sign and date the list
2) sing a song together with his "brothers" to express his love for her - loud enough so she could hear it from her room through the closed door. mind you, this was at about 7/8am! poor neighbours ;)
3) give red packets to the "jie mei"s, as the bride's sisters are called. mind you, they open the packets and check to see how much money there is ;) the first time, it wasn't enough so they asked for more. lol.

see, it was pretty easy right? *shakes head*. he should be grateful! hahaha.
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