Chinese Tradition and Wedding Dresses
If you look at a Chinese wedding dress, you’ll find that it is very much different than the traditional wedding dress in the Western world. Chinese wedding dresses are generally much more decorative, and much more work is put into them. Oftentimes, the wedding dress itself is based upon the region that the bride’s family is from. For example, if the bride’s family is from the South, she may wear the Cheongsan; if she is from the North, she would wear the Qi Pao. There are many more examples from within China which are shown in the styles of dress, which could be Mongolian, Tibetian, or even Taiwanese.
The color of the wedding dress is especially significant. Most Chinese women wear red at their weddings, because red signifies happiness. In China, white symbolizes death, so this is not a suitable color for a wedding dress. However, lately, Chinese brides have started to accept Western traditions, and are wearing more white.
The men at a traditional Chinese wedding would usually wear black or gray, which on a woman would be a sign of grief, but for the men is perfectly acceptable. Men may also wear the colors that pertain to their station, which is a lot like in Western wedding ceremonies.
Many Chinese wedding gowns have golden embroidery decorations, and it’s important to know that not every tailor can do this. In that case, they usually hire a tailor who was highly skilled, thus, only very wealthy Chinese may be able to use gold embroidery on their wedding dress.
Today’s Chinese wedding gown tradition is said to be coming from the ancient Qing Dynasty, the last dynasty to rule in China. They ruled from 1644 to 1912, and were founded by the Manchu Clan that still can be found today in northeast China.
It is absolutely amazing to look at the past and see the things that influence who we have become. Every culture has its own traditions and past, and if you examine your own culture, you may find that it’s not that much different than it was a few hundred years ago.