Marriage doesn’t always come easy. The following wedding customs from five ethnic minorities demonstrate its difficulty. It will be easy to understand why there are so many singles as well as dating shows in China after reading this article.
Buyi women wear "Kariya" when they get married.
According to the traditional customs of Zhengning, Guizhou province, when children are still in the budding period, their parents choose their marriage for them. After rounds blind dating and engagement ceremonies, parents hold a grand marriage when their children are five or six years old, after which they still live in their own family and continue their happy childhood.
"Jiagu” (also known as the fake shell) is a bamboo shell-framed headdress overlaid with batik cloth. Strongly attached to their sheer free life, many girls hesitate to wear Jiagu. So during the Jiagu wearing season, some married girls are forced to wear it by tricky “surprise attacks”.
Every year during August and September, or April of the following year, the groom’s mother and sister-in-law, or two female relatives, will bring a chicken and Jiagu to the bride’s home and catch her unprepared to unclasp her hair and wear Jiagu; if unsuccessful, Jiagu will be worn on another day.
The bride will sit at home wearing Jiagu for two or three days and try hard to abide by this custom. Wearing Jiagu means the end of her living with her parents and the beginning of marriage.
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