The Big Delivery Day (Part 2)

What a busy week indeed. I have to do so many things at such little time left. Which is why, spending late nights clearing the room while working during daytime rushing reports. Not only do I have to clean my room, I have to also listen to wedding dinner song selection, messaging and calling people to RSVP their attendance, liaising with caterers, florists and such, and so on and on. I seriously don't recommend to any couples intending to get married to be gung ho by organising their own wedding.

In a few more days, I would be deemed, under the Chinese custom, to be a full fledged adult. Yup, in Chinese custom, even if you are 60 years old and you have yet to get married, you don't enjoy the recognition you are a full fledged adult. It is like a certain duty only an adult can do has not been fulfilled and hence you are kind of kidding yourself as you carry on living without a spouse.

Anyway, I decided to attached the photos of stuff I gotten as part of the gift exchange from the groom's family.

The infamous virgin declaration item : Roast pig (viewed from the rear)

The infamous virgin declaration item : Roast pig (viewed from the front)

The one thing you need to note next is that what is behind the red paper. Now one would think it is a whole pig, but...

The middle part is missing!

Actually, it is missing because the bride's family took it. You see, the groom side offers to the bride's family the whole pig but usually they will return the head and the rear of the pig. As they said it in Cantonese, "Yaw Tau Yaw Mei" which basically means all that begins well ends well or completeness in short.


As part of the gift exchange, you will notice two coconuts in a basket. Well, the coconuts are supposed to signify the wishes of the bride's family that the new couple will have lots of descendants. You see, in the olden days and in an agricultural society, manpower is greatly needed to farm the land and what better workforce to exploit if it is not your own? Also, since the old economy do not provide social security/welfare net and most people are poor, it makes sense to share the burden to care for the elderly among lots of children. Oh well, that is how I look at it because nowadays, Chinese in Malaysia only wants to raise quality children hence you will find a lot of Chinese couples only have 1 child or 2 children. Given the fact that we have EPF, retirement planning and such, more and more people are opting to just enjoy their retirement without much support from their children. Hmmm....


This nice basket is actually for the bride. It just serves as a container to carry fruits and such. I guess in the olden days, a married woman need a basket like how power executives today need a briefcase. The dutiful daughter-in-law will go out to market and buy raw food to cook or bring lunches to the family busy working the farm. Over the yearly, nicer design are added to the basket like this one here. I really like this basket but other than its aesthetic value, it is as useful as a plastic bag. Perhaps with changing times like our environmental concern, it might make a comeback. Or not because it is too heavy for those well lotioned smooth and fair hands. Hmmm...

Another thing that the bride's family send back as gifts in preparation for the bride to be a dutiful wife and daughter-in-law is the sewing kit set (as you can see at bottom right). In the olden days before women today demand for equal rights and complain about the glass ceiling, their role in a household is quite limited. They do mostly household chores while the men are expected to toil the fields. Of course in reality, women also toil the soil if there aren't enough people in the family so some women are lucky if they are restricted to only household chores. The downside is they usually have a tough mother-in-law/dragon lady supervising them. Giving them a set of sewing kit is the wishes of the groom's family that their well trained daughter will be able to perform her assigned roles with no problems.

This basket represents another wishes from the bride's family that she will have a good life in the groom's family. Given the amount of famine and droughts we often watch in TVB series in the past when they depict the hard life of farmers, this only makes sense because the bride knows nuts about the groom's family as she usually only knows them when she is married off (yes, olden days marriage are all arranged by parents). Also, the act of divorcing is very lopsided where only the husband can divorce his wife and NOT vice versa. So, women today should be thankful they CAN divorce their unfaithful husbands and work on their own without fear of retribution unlike in the past.

Last but not least, are the washing basin, spitting urn and bath tub. The spitting urn doubles as a toilet training container for future young babies aged from 1 to 2 years old.

In many ways, over the years, practices and customs which turned into tradition and superstitions closely associated with these gifts but it remains, at the core, well wishes from both families that the young couple have a good head start in raising a family. I will not dwell too much on those customs until later when I have more photos. Till then, it is back to table seating arrangement. Sigh...