Year of the Dog

For those of you who don't know, 2006 is the year of the dog. Those of you born in 58, 70, 82, . . .get to celebrate! I was born in 1982, so this is my year, but I found out that the way you celebrate is a bit peculiar and full of superstition. The tradition that strikes me as the funniest is that you are supposed to wear red underwear all year long. As I walked through the entrance to Walmart the other day I saw a display of different varieties of red underwear with a picture of a dog beside it to make sure that the right people bought them. I guess they really do take this superstition seriously, but I don't know how red underwear is supposed to bring you good luck. Another superstition is that you should take a shower at midnight of New Year's Eve in order to wash off evil spirits.

I was invited to the wedding party of one of my friends. They were actually legally married back in December but they did not hold the party until January 13th. The bride and groom are both from the countryside, so it was about a five hour trip to get to the wedding. My friend had originally wanted to get married in her village according to traditional Yao customs, but for timesake she went with the more modern custom. The bride wears a western style wedding dress (it is normally white, but her's was pink) that they rent from a studio. The couple and attendants then stand at the door and greet guests as they arrive. They handed out cigarettes, sunflower seeds, and candy to people as they arrived. After the welcoming, the bride changes into a traditional Chinese red dress to eat and continue greeting people from table to table.

Before the guests were allowed to enter the wedding party and greet the bride and groom, they shot off firecrackers for about ten minutes. The purpose of this is to fend of evil spirits and to bring good luck to the couple. But I would personally be afraid of scaring off guests. Those things were soooo loud.

As the guests came in the door they handed red envelopes of money to the men at this table. The bride's older brother wrote down the amount that every person gave. I do not know what they later did with this information. They younger brother then put all of the cash into a little purse to be given to the couple later.

Here is the line of people waiting to greet the bride and groom

This is where the wedding party was held, although only the common guests ate here. Family and out of town/special guests ate in private rooms down the hall. Though I do not really know the bride that well, I was a special guest and ate in a room with the bride and grooms siblings and good friends. I kind of think they just didn't know what to do with the two foreigners.

During the wedding party we got our picture taken with the turban adorned matrons. I did not come to discover why only a few of them wore the hats, but it does appear that they wear them on a daily basis and not just for special occasions.

I was aroused from bed this morning by five Yao women with big turbans knocking on my door. They had come to dress us up in their traditional clothing so that we could take pictures. We did not ask for this privilege, but my Yao friend thought it would be fun for us to experience, and it was. Kim's head was too big for any of the pre-maid turbans so they made one up especially for her head. It took quite a bit of time and fabric.

Here is a close up of the upper portion of the costume. The head piece has rhinestone all across the front. The neon green and yellow are a bunch of little glass beads. Underneath al the tastles is a hand embroidered blouse that is quite pretty. One lady took her turban off and put it on my head but it was too small so another lady gave me hers. Under the turban they have boycut hair. When not wearing the turban they wear a towel on their heads.

Here is the back of the costume.

Four real Pan Yao women and two imposters. As you can tell, the imposters taller and much whiter than the real thing.

This is what the top of one of the hats looks like. It is a hand embroidered tapestry.