Four weddings, one country - four Chinese generations

Source: Xinhua | 12-08-2008 16:01

BEIJING, Dec. 8 (Xinhua) -- "We will wed at a small theatre in Beijing by performing a play about our love story," said Wang Zhe, owner of a small restaurant in one of central Beijing's alleys, "I am the playwright and all the actors and actresses are my friends and relatives."

Shanghai office worker Li Runya, 26, on the other hand, said frankly that she and her husband had no wedding ceremony. A year before, they registered as a couple and had been living together since.

China, a country with its thousand-year-long traditional style wedding, has seen constant changes in the past decades in how people celebrated marriage.

1970s: "Let's bow to Chairman Mao's portrait."

In 1971, the then 22 and 19-year-old doctors Mr. Wang Shan and Ms. Yang Ying, walked into a local marriage office in the central Henan Province with letters of reference written by their respective work units, proving they had approval to get married.

No photographs, no wedding gowns. Instead, they bowed to Chairman Mao Zedong's portrait, worshipped at home, and to their parents afterwards.

With a monthly salary of 30 yuan (4.4 U.S. dollars), Wang borrowed a door panel from his work unit to be their "new" bed. They gave candies to colleagues and relatives and in return, got teacups and paintings as gifts.

"For most people in the 70s, our dream was to own 'three wheeled things and one vocal thing' which, namely, are a bicycle, a sewing machine, a watch and a radio," said Yang.