Meaning of the Jian Bird

I'm starting this blog, as mentioned in the about me section, because my Chinese teacher (to be known as lao shi (Chinese for teacher)) is requiring us to write about Chinese culture.  Well, Chinese culture is a little hard to find in the middle of Arkansas, but we'll see what I can do.

You may be wondering about the name of the blog.  Well, in Chinese mythology, the Jian bird is a bird with only one eye and one wing.  The Jian bird, of course, cannot fly with one wing, so it has to find it's mate in order to reach it's potential.  It is frequently used as a symbol for marriage.

The obvious analogy here is to myself.  I may not be missing any crucial limbs, but human beings tend to be more successful when they have their compliment - another human being with a synergistic personality to yours who can allow you to, metaphorically, fly.

I've found my other bird, and we're going to get married in December of this year.

Anyway, the Jian bird got me interested in traditional Chinese weddings, so I looked up some info.  hopefully this will count for my assignment.

Apparently, traditionally, Chinese weddings were fairly complicated, six step affairs, where first came the proposal, and if this was accepted, they would proceed to have the birth dates checked for compatibility.  This seems odd from our perspective, of course, but certainly no more so than western marriage practices.

Assuming the birthdates were compatible, they would proceed to betrothal gifts(or bride price), then the groom's family would send a bunch of food and religious items to the bride's family.

after this, the two families would decide upon a wedding day(of course, only after ensuring it was a fortuitous date), and then came the ceremony itself.  In those times, of course, the bride had no say in who her husband would be.

Since then, of course, things have become far less rigidly structured.

I found a very interesting video of a traditional Chinese wedding on youtube.  the footage of course, has been cut down a great deal(from 3 hours to 9 minutes).  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WFd3uvWb4no

My own wedding won't be nearly so elaborate, nor so red.


Wedding - Hun1shi3
husband - Ai4ren
Wife - Ai4ren
Love - Ai4
Priest - Jiao4shi4