Prince white horse and the ring (Custom)

With the world watching and cheering for the wedding of Prince William and Kate, I noticed a report on the difficulty Prince William had when putting the ring on Kate’s finger. The journalist jokingly commented he wondered if Kate had been “instructed” by a 高人(gao ren2), a capable man or an expert. (But it has nothing to do his height.)

To understand what the journalist means, you have to know some Taiwanese customs concerning engagement. But before I talk about this, I’d like to deal with the term “prince white horse,” 白馬王子(bai2 ma3 wang2 zi3) first.

It’s what we call prince charming in Mandarin. I tried to find out the origin of the phrase, but in vain. I guess it more or less has something to do the fairy tales like Snow White and Sleeping Beauty, where the prince, who bravely rescued the spell-bound princess, always shows up on a white horse perhaps, as I remember when reading those stories as a little girl?

Anyway, 白馬王子has always been every girl’s dream. Since the moment when they start to read those fairy tales or upon their puberty, more or less they have their own image of白馬王子in their mind. And having a romantic of luxurious wedding like Prince William and Kate’s may be, a dream come true for a lot of girls.

After a Taiwanese girl meets her白馬王子, goes through the process of a relationship and decides to marry him, there would be an engagement ceremony, which is optional, and a wedding like most westerners do. Westernized as we are, we have many customs that unique to us.

First of all, prince charming’s parents , or the elder members of the family if either of the parents can’t be there, have to go to the girl’s place to meet her parents and 提親(ti2 qin), literally meaning to mention the wedding , which could be considered an official proposal. Though arranged marriage 媒妁之言(mei2 shuo4 zhi yan2) is no longer practiced, a matchmaker, 媒人(mei2 ren2) will go with the bridegroom’s parents as a formal matchmaker as it used to be.

The purpose of the ritual is to make sure parents of both sides agree with this marriage and decide some details, such as the date, the place of the wedding, 聘金(pin4 jin)，嫁妝(jia4 zhuang)，and喜餅(xi3 bing3)

聘金is the money from the bridegroom’s family to the bride’s family. 嫁妝is the dowry. You have to know in Chinese, we use different word for getting married. For the bridegroom, he is going to 娶(qu3) a woman; for the bride, she is going to 嫁(jia4) a man. That’s why dowry is called嫁妝.These days people are not so particular about these. Very often the bride’s parents will return the 聘金and the bridegroom’s family won’t ask fro any嫁妝 at all.

But the bridegroom’s family has to pay for the 喜餅, the wedding biscuit. Distributing the wedding biscuit is a way to let the bride’s relatives and friends to know about the coming wedding. The bride’s family has to count how many喜餅they’ll need and the bridegroom will pay for them. When you get a喜餅, you know someone’s daughter is getting married.

The engagement is held at the bride’s place. The bridegroom’s family and relatives as well as the matchmaker, usually in a lucky even number, go to the bride’s place at the appointed time. The bride will show up holding a plate with cups of tea to serve the guests. The guests take a cup of tea and put a red envelop on the plate.

The highlight of the engagement would be the couple’s exchange of rings. Almost every Taiwanese mom will emphasize to their son or daughter that they should bend their finger a bit when the ring is being put, so that the ring won’t go to the bottom of it.

Why? According to our great great grandmas, if you let your other half put the ring to the bottom of your finger very easily, you’ll get controlled or “bullied” by him or her for the rest of your life. That’s why everyone’s holding his breath and watching the couple if they are doing what their moms tell them. Tricky, uh? The “war” of manipulation starts even before the wedding!

That’s why I think every Taiwanese was laughing in his sleeve when seeing Prince Williams having a hard time putting the ring. Kate, you sly fox, have you been “coached” by a Taiwanese? 

提親=提亲

嫁妝=嫁妆

喜餅=喜饼