Love and Marriage

After ripping out the lace edging, I went in search of yet another lacy pattern. This is a rather open lace and the yarn is so inelastic that I'm going to doubt any blocking is going to be required.

The good thing (yes there is a good thing) about the constant ripping and reknitting is that the hemp does get softer with wear and tear and it's starting to grow on me. I'm working a provisional cast on as I think that I'm going to cast off in a picot edging. I've found it difficult to get an even and loose enough cast on to work well as an eding so I'm not going to fight it.

I've learned this provisional cast on from the Fiber Trend patterns. You crochet a chain in waste yarn and pickup and knit off that. When you want to get rid of the waste yarn, just undo and pull. It's quick easy and a really neat solution.

Here's a close-up of the lace. I'm finding that with a 3.5 mm, I'm getting quite an open lacework. This is probably due to the dull of the Addi tips.

Now, Lousie, Tessa, Thos, read on if you want to know more about 'doing the pig'

Chinese weddings are shrouded in all sorts of rituals. Modern weddings tend to follow some but not all the traditions. It depends a lot on the family. My family being the traditional sort, did try to do as many of the traditional things as possible, even through my husband was not Chinese, did not speak Cantonese and was probably too jet-lagged to appreciate what was going on.

I was the first of my siblings to wed so, I really didn't know the routine and wasn't in position to warn him either. So it wasn't really a case of my family stringing him along in one sit-com scene after the other.

I'll write more about Chinese wedding traditions as my sister is getting married later this year and I'll need to put together some details for her non-Chinese friends.

Doing the *Pig*

Three days after the wedding, the bride and groom are expected to return to the bride's home. They come bearing gifts, a whole roasted suckling pig, delicacies like bird's nest soup and abalone and sweets. When a girl marries, she marries out of her family and becomes part of her husband's family, so this coming back in the olden days was an opportunity to say goodbye to her family.

It is considered good manners and generous for the bride's family to return part of the gifts to the groom's family. If the bride's family does not return a generous portion, it's like saying the groom's family was not generous in their gift. In the olden days, the gifts might include silk fabrics and livestock.

Included with the gifts apportioned to the groom's family, would be the pig's head and pig's rear. It's symbolic of a good beginning and end to the union.

Prior to cutting up the pig, incense is lit and the bride and groom take their bows to honour the bride's family.

'Doing the pig' was a complete shock to my husband (come to think of it, a shock to me too!). My family had bought the pig for him and after the bows, etc. imagine his surprise when they handed him the pig head and pig butt...

Years later, when dining with another couple (wife is Italian, husband is Chinese), my husband mentioned this incident and the wife started laughing uncontrollably. The 'pig ritual' was a surprise to her and her mother-in-law had brought the pig over and explained what needed to be done. Her mother thought that giving someone the pig head and pig butt was off putting, so she gave the groom's mom, the pork belly and the ham and couldn't understand why the groom's mom insisted on getting the pig head and pig butt.

Henceforth, any Chinese ritual whereby one party (the non Chinese partner) is clueless as to what is expected of them, has become known as 'doing the pig'.

Posted by atu at June 22, 2004 09:09 PM