“Lift your veil, let me see your face” -the song Lift Your Veil by Wang Luobin (1913-1996), a famous singer of Western China, is widely known. The veil in the song is a traditional Chinese wedding ceremony appliance, which has had a thousand years’ history. As a result of the “Elimination of Four Olds” (referring to elimination of old ideas, old culture, old customs, old habits) in the 1960s, the traditional wedding ceremony together with the veil suddenly disappeared. In recent years, with the return of traditional culture, the red veil has appeared again in the wedding ceremony.
The veil is a five-feet square red silk, embroidered with coins or other ornaments in the four corners, and some are embroidered with Yuanyang① (mandarin duck), dragon and phoenix or peonies, etc. Before leaving the parental home, the bride has her head covered; after worshiping heaven and earth at her husband’s family home and then entering the bridal chamber, the groom lifts the veil. A scale beam is a common tool to lift the veil, but a sword, chopsticks, ruler or whip may be used alternatively, implying different meanings.
Why a scale beam is used to lift the veil? In the ancient times, 1 jin equaled 16 liang, and each liang was represented by a star, called “scale star”. It was said that the scale stars evolved from the stars in the sky, wherein, the first six represented Sagittarius, the next seven represented the Big Dipper, and the last three at the end of the scale beam represented the stars of fortune, prosperity and longevity. Lifting the veil with a scale beam implied complete satisfaction.
Dengzi, another kind of scale specially used to weigh gold, silver and jewelry, traditional Chinese medicine and other items, was also used to lift the veil, as Dengzi and “expecting son” were homophones, and Dengzi with many stars symbolized many sons. Chinese people believed the more sons, the more blessings, and having children and grandchildren were the greatest wish of the elderly.
Why is the bride covered by a veil when she is married? Folklorists have multiple interpretations, such as covering up embarrassment and warding off evil. The saying of covering up embarrassment originated from the Chinese first ancestor myth that at the beginning of the world, in order to reproduce offspring, Nu Wa was married to Fu Xi by covering her face with a fan made of cattail leaves to cover up the feeling of embarrassment. Later, this fan evolved into a veil. The veil has many aliases, including “embarrassment scarf”, which can be seen as the annotation of the function of covering up embarrassment.
Originally, the veil had as many colors as the bride’s clothing, and its red color was not finalized until later. In the minds of Chinese people, red not only means jubilation, but also can exorcise evil spirits. Nowadays, during their Benmingnian (the zodiac year of birth), people will wear red belt, red underwear and red socks in order to exorcise evil spirits.
There is also an old story covering the function of veil to exorcise evil spirits. According to legend, a man named Zhou Qian, also known as Zhou Gong, was a famous fortune-teller; however, his divination was repeatedly broken by the Peach Blossom Girl cultivated from a peach tree. That annoyed Zhou Gong so much that he pretended to entrust a matchmaker to propose to the Peach Blossom Girl on behalf of his son, for the purpose of doing harm to her on the way to the wedding. The Peach Blossom Girl turned his trick to her own use and agreed to the marriage. Zhou Gong chose a black day to marry the Peach Blossom Girl, but also called in evil spirits and turned them into rocks and stumps in roadside ambush to attack the Peach Blossom Girl. Having foreseen Zhou Gong’s conspiracy, on the day of wedding, the Peach Blossom Girl wore a red dress, covered her head with a piece of red cloth, and told those accompanying her to cover the strange rocks, stumps or whatever with red paper. In this way, the evils were suppressed by the red paper, Zhou Gong’s conspiracy collapsed, and the Peach Blossom Girl was wed. From then on, people followed the approach of the Peach Blossom Girl, and the red veil became popular.
The bride of today will usually wear a wedding dress, but will put on traditional clothing at the wedding feast. Nowadays, the bridal sedan chair has been replaced by a car, but it is still necessary to use red paper to cover the manhole covers which the bridal car passes. The traditional things are gradually returning to people’s daily life.
Note:
① Yuanyang (mandarin duck): Yuan refers to the male bird, Yang refers to the female bird. Yuanyang has been found in many ancient Chinese literatures and mythologies. According to folk legend, once Yuan and Yang were paired, they would become life companions, so it was regarded as a symbol of love.
