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Life Stages－Bridal Chair

Place：Fan Ling Road
Date：1963-12-06
Observation：Traditionally, when the bride left her father’s house she was put in a ‘flower chair’ and sealed in with red ribbons. She was then taken back to her future home, wailing and even singing obscene or insulting songs about her future in-laws (whom she would in most cases never have met). Here, halfway between the two villages, the bride was wailing so desperately that the accompanying old woman, told the bearers to put the chair down, called over the matchmaker, and asked the bride what was wrong. The answer was “Nothing”, she was just crying as was expected of someone brutally snatched from the home she had known all her life. This was a traditional ceremony, but it was in fact a love match, not an arranged marriage.