All posts tagged: china

My First Chinese Wedding

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A wedding is a must-attend to graduate in the understanding of a culture. A batch-mate at work took the plunge last night, giving me my first sneak peak into a Chinese-Singaporean wedding. Gate crashing The title’s a misnomer. It’s a Singaporean tradition in which the groom must earn the right to his bride. The groom, accompanied by his brothers (the western equivalent of the best man), shows up early in the morning at the bride’s house. They are greeted by the bridesmaids and tasked to pass tests on life’s essential skills (culinary, physical, endurance etc). Before the tasks started, all the brothers were made to sign indemnity forms! In this particular wedding, the tasks were considered rather mild, and included doing push-ups, decorating a cake, dancing & eating dumplings of 4 kinds – sweet, sour, spicy (stuffed with chilli) & bitter (boiled with panadol!) After completing all the tasks, the groom is given the key to his bride’s room where she waits in her bridal gown – rescuing the girl, Bollywood style 🙂 Tea ceremony …

Beijing Olympics, a fake start

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Remember how we all gawked at out television screens during the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics? The splendid fireworks became the talk of the evening (and of my blog). Well, well. Here’s what we know. A part of those fireworks were FAKED on our TV screens. They were digitally superimposed, even on the live coverage of the actual event. And there’s more. If you watched the entire opening ceremony, you might remember that little Chinese girl who sang in Chinese, right at the start. Personally, I couldn’t make much of it, but her nightingalish performance was received with lots of applause and appreciation from the Bird’s Nest audience. Guess what? It was FAKE too! She was only mimicking the voice recording of another little girl. Apparently, the girl with the sweeter voice didn’t have the right look to befit a stage as precious the Olympics opening ceremony. A seven-year old girl, she was told that her personal appearance during the Olympics ceremony would ‘harm China’s image’. So, in Beijing, they very conveniently coupled the better voice …