You're listening to Roundtable.
I'm Steve Hatherly, together today with Yushun and Yushan.
Coming up.
What happens when a wedding ditches the ballroom for a pub or the bridal carriage for a fleet of electric cars?
We'll explore how Gen Z couples are fiercely personalizing their big day, creating celebrations that really are their own.
After that, we'll share with you the things that made us happy over the past few days or so.
Roundtable's happy place is on the way.
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And now...
For decades, the wedding industry was dominated by certain expectations.
Big, big guest lists, high-end hotel ballrooms, and really quite rigid formal etiquette.
But now a new generation is taking the aisle and they are shaking things up completely.
Nowadays, Gen Z couples are actively rejecting conventional traditions.
Instead, we're seeing weddings hosted in humble neighborhood pubs or big local restaurants that maybe are a favorite of the couple.
And it might even feature a bridal carriage.
Thank you for watching.
We're going to talk about all of it, but I'd like to learn, if you don't mind first, before we talk about the new school weddings, what does an old school traditional Chinese wedding look like?
I think, as for old school, you mean the very traditional Chinese themed wedding that already last throughout our culture for over 3000 years, ever since the Zhou Dynasty.
I was so surprised to find out how old it is.
It seems something like we grew up knowing as kids that in the older times, old school ways, marriages are not decided by individual young men or women.
It's decided by their respective families, by hiring a matchmaker.
Usually the family need to be in similar social status the matchmaker will help them to exchange the young person's um date of birth what they like to do and their current like hobbies or especially for the guys to the girls like what his current position is like his job is what he does how big of a future um potential he's got then after both family agrees and the data set the betrothal gift are exchanged then there's this ceremony time where Everybody wears or dressed up in the color red.
Even the curtains, they're all in red.
Oh, really?
The bedsheets, everything is all in red.
Because red's a lucky color in China.
It represents good luck and happiness.
So the bride will be asked to wear a red veil 盖头 in Chinese where it's to be lifted after the ceremony, when both are about to enter the bedroom for the very romantic part.
But...
Before that happens, there's going to be three very famous bows.
And the first bow is to bow to the heaven and the earth for thanking the world.
And then the second bow is for their respective parents for raising them up.
And then the third bow is between each other for a very good blessing at the very beginning of their wedding.
Throughout this whole process, the bride is more or less blind because she's got a veil covered her eyes.
Oh, she can't see anything.
And basically the moment her veil is lifted by her future husband.
It's the first time the two of them meet.
Oh, it's the first time they see each other.
Yes, in very traditional and old school way.
Well, times have changed a lot.
So thanks for that.
Let's get into it then.
So what is this core philosophy behind Gen Z weddings these days?
Nowadays, for young Gen Z Chinese, it's all about embracing a wedding design that's really anchored in the very down-to-earth idea of choosing what I like.
It's supposed to be a day where I celebrate with my significant other and be happy that we are uniting into such a new small family of our own.
It shouldn't be appealing to anything else or anybody else, or formulated like it's done before by everybody else.
So it may come from witnessing and attending an era of more traditional, elaborated weddings and so that nowadays, young people just saying no no no, rituals like that.
I want things come out from our own memories, like pulling out our own past travel experiences, using those pictures as decorations onto the ceremonial place.
Okay, that's cool.
Yeah, and also doing the interior design of the hall themselves, choosing where they like it Western style or traditional Chinese style on the lawn, outdoor or inside the hall.
So it's all about DIYing things nowadays.
Yeah, I think we had that discussion having wedding photos during a trip or hiring photographers to go with your trip and then take photos for you and that as your wedding photo.
And that can be even considered as old school in a form of new school way.
Already that can get very expensive though yes yes, and anyway, when you are having that ceremony, everything can be expensive, but nowadays so it's more about.
I love that idea by printing out pictures of your relationship path from your first date or something like that, into your trips together or whatever the case may be, and using those as decorations at the wedding.
But this is kind of cool too, the venue.
So I guess traditionally, traditionally hundreds or thousands of years ago, it would be held in a very formal area.
But nowadays, pubs, favorite restaurants of the couple.
I saw McDonald's was one example, which is kind of fun.
So what's the idea behind this?
Traditionally, it's held in the guy's house, I would say, as in formal ways.
But nowadays it's all about just simplifying rituals and choose what they want the most.
Because sorry, I have to mention the traditional way again.
Because the meaning of bringing the bride to the groom's house and host the ceremony there has this cultural connotation of accepting the bride as part of the groom's family and the bride is walking away from her own family so that she's becoming a new part of the new family.
So so long ago it would have been held like inside the home of the groom usually yeah, But nowadays this similar say, ritual called getting the bride, or jie qin, has more or less the same meaning to it, where it doesn't have to be in any party's home now.
It can be in a very luxurious hotel.
It can be in, say, the bar. any place, venues that you ordered to host that ceremony.
But it's all about like getting everybody there to celebrate.
But also the process can be tiring in getting the bride.
It means that the I'm not sure if you've been the best man before.
You shouldn't have such experience of helping with a friend that you have to just.
Be there at 3 a.m., let's say.
3 a.m.?
Yeah, that's the regular... You need to wait for everybody to get makeup on.
Oh, it starts.
So if the wedding is at what 10 or 11 am in the morning, then the preparations start at 3 am.
Yeah.
Maybe decorate the room or something.
Oh, you've been through this.
So I think that is what I've experienced.
I've experienced some of the very old school ones and maybe some, like... new designed ones.
And what I can feel is that all of these processes have been evolved throughout all of these years.
So back then people celebrate these or having the ceremonies at their own home, and they do all of these pick up things, pick up the brides things.
And then people feel maybe that could be quite troublesome going through everywhere, right?
And they will have the ceremony in one hotel and they will like book two rooms and then they can just pick up the bride's room from one room to another.
So that could be easier and also the decoration thing can be easier.
The cleanup thing can be even easier.
Just don't make it too stressful.
It's meant to be a day to celebrate and make sure everybody is happy, not exhausted at the end of the day, and that's also why a lot of young people they're cutting off the ceremony into as minimum as possible.
Sometimes people only take they only take like 10 minutes finish the ceremony itself, then tell all the guests it's time to eat, it's time to have fun, it's time to talk to one another and enjoy the rest of the time you're here.
And in traditional not traditional we mentioned traditional in two many different aspects nowadays.
In the formulated way, in the formula of hosting Chinese weddings nowadays, there seems to be a segment called the emotional tear shedding part.
Oh, like an official time to cry.
Yeah, like they play sentimental music and the host or the conductor of the ceremony will say things like oh, dear girl, you're going to leave your family and entering a new one.
From now on, you are going to call your in-laws mom and dad.
You know, that kind of things make you feel like this is a departure instead of really union built.
You know, like I've been the bridesmaid, is that how you call it?
The bridesmaid of one of my best friend back in 2023.
And she was like, I will bear my iron hard mind today not to cry in those sessions.
I was like, girl, you should have just told them not to.
So this is what Gen Z are doing nowadays.
They just cut off these segments they don't like.
So the things that make them well yeah, I mean not necessarily super uncomfortable, but just the things they don't want in their wedding, they don't have in their wedding just because in the past people used to have.
Or that just because it's a tradition but no longer practical in the gen z's perspective.
And another example of that would be nowadays, young chinese people, when they get married, they're opting for no hosts.
Oh yeah, at their wedding.
So the, the host, would be the conductor of the ceremony in a way.
And also it comes as part of a fuller wedding um company's service.
Usually you hire the whole company, you hire somebody or some worker to bring in all the decorations and and and and um like a wedding process, like a wedding planning.
Yeah, put up a stage or something and then there there will be this person.
You might perhaps never know this person, but you have to get close to him and befriend him and let him be responsible for queuing who to make the toast and who to come up the stage nowadays.
So that's the so-called host, and it's usually um hired, rather than having like a close friend, for example, to go on the stage and just host it like that.
I'm not sure if it's done similarly in the West.
I've done that.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
What are you laughing at?
That's possible.
Really?
Yeah.
But I wasn't hired by someone.
It was my two close friends who got married, and they asked me to conduct the ceremony.
This was I mean, that wedding would fall into what we're talking about today.
It was very loose in terms of structure.
There were no real rules.
And all I did was the official part where they read each other's vows.
They read their vows to each other and then kissed.
And then that was it.
Then it was party time.
Like you said, it was like 10 minutes long and the ceremony.
And that was about all.
I was reading about in the West to see what young Gen Z people were doing.
And this is kind of a cool change that I found that they're doing there.
So typically or in the past, you'd hire a wedding photographer where they would come and take lots of pictures, and everybody knows what that is.
Right.
But now apparently what they're doing is they're hiring people. content creators.
So what the content creators are doing is they're coming and they're making videos.
Content creators are really good at making videos and editing videos.
So they come and they shoot videos and then edit them.
Sometimes they'll edit them on the same day And they'll have them available for upload really, really quickly to TikTok or what have you, the other social media platforms.
And that's a really popular thing for Gen Z to do or to hire for their own wedding these days.
Yeah.
Nowadays, some of these wedding ceremony planners can also offer you that kind of service.
But I want to say is that that is...
I would say people are having that kind of mindset of you know back then where we've discussed.
It's more like a kind of performance to be shown to the audience that even the bride's And the groom don't even know, some of these guests.
You put on the costume and you perform like everybody would expect to.
Yeah, a lot of people would say that as kind of a performance that they don't even like.
But nowadays, it's more like a celebration for everybody.
Not only about this thing, also emotional segments part, right?
People are having that mindset changed from it is a departure to, they are creating a new family and the two separate families are happy as well and they create a new family.
But we're not saying that back then the traditional costumes are just not good.
And of course, some of these are quite, they are a reflection of culture and also history.
And everything can be quite fascinating when you are having these kind of traditional elements in your wedding.
But the point is that people are having new ideas and creating their favorable ways of having their own weddings as a celebration.
Would you say it's true?
This is one of the things that I've learned from living in Asia living in Korea and then my limited time so far in China is that maybe a long time ago, when you got married, you weren't just marrying the person, you were marrying the family.
Yes.
And that was true for both.
So that was true for both individuals.
You might argue that that is sometimes the case in the West as well, but I think it's not quite to the degree that it was in Asia.
My question is, is that changing now?
Do you think where it's more about marrying the individual and marrying the individual only where it's less?
What's the word?
An alignment.
Yeah, an alignment or a marriage of two families together.
I would say nowadays, younger generation they really value the fact that their family respect their idea of how they would like to live in the future in the notion of their own family.
By getting married, hosting the ceremony, they can already tell, we can already see that young people, they value their individuality and they value the fact that their family respect them as they are.
Even though you want to host a 10-minute ceremony in McDonald's, that's how they are.
That's how it will make them feel happy and feel respected and valued.
You want to get married where?
Are you crazy?
That's what I was telling you earlier today.
Personally, in my family case, I'm pretty sure I don't have full authority over that.
I'll have, let's say 50-50, 50 handled to my father, who is expecting to showcase his, the fact that her daughter is finally getting married at the age she is right now, after all this years, and it's time for the whole world to know.
So he will be inviting his part of the, the bigger family group, and also the, the friends very good friends he's got, and perhaps get some red envelope in the meantime.
So yeah, that's something to balance and most of the in most cases um parents, they respect you in a way.
If you communicate fully with them on how you really want this day to be, so there's always place to leverage and room to discuss.
That actually is a question that a lot of newlyweds will think about, because they want a ceremony that they really want, but their parents want a ceremony that traditionally want.
So they may have both.
Actually, they won't have.
They will have a quite a simple and fashionable wedding ceremony on their own and maybe then have a huge gathering with all of the family members and relatives.
Yeah, I see.
So it sounds like then, after what I've learned today, that there is a step away perhaps, from traditional Chinese culture, but yet there's still a lot of respect for traditional Chinese culture and it's still taken into account by young people today.
Quite interesting.
There you go.
We'll put a bow on that topic.
Stay with us when we come back.
It's Roundtable's Happy Place.
Delivery.
Delivery.
Delivery.
Delivery.
What is it?
Happy Nails from Roundtable.
Roundtable's happy place.
And Yushan, you just spoke about your dad.
So please do continue to speak about your dad.
I mean, I have bad mouth about my dad quite often on the show.
Thank goodness he doesn't listen to me.
At least here on the show.
But one thing to be really happy about, and to celebrate indeed, is that today the very day is his birthday.
Oh, lovely.
57th birthday.
57th birthday.
Yeah.
So how is he celebrating?
What does he typically enjoy doing on his birthday?
Let's say he enjoys... Now he has to listen to the show.
Yeah, you have to cut this clip and play it for him.
Okay no, but yeah, and he enjoys good meal and good family time.
Um, by nature he's a very introverted person um, even though that's not very often how he's demonstrating himself in public, but i know that deep down he prefers just a quiet meal, the three of us and um, Perhaps even with some surprise, which I'm getting him to.
I think in one of the previous shows I mentioned.
Yeah, like many years ago, I got my dad a Huawei Watch GT2, which is an older version.
And on that show we said now that there comes GT6, a very new model type, which I just got him yesterday as a gift.
So yeah, that's the little surprise.
And then my mom on her side is preparing a meal because she caught off off work today to just stay at home and prepare like a relatively bigger meal than usual, to just have the night for the three of us and celebrate.
Oh, he's going to have a great day then.
Yeah, it's a time that we say that we really appreciate all the sacrifice you make for the family and It's a time where you stop cooking because my dad cooks all the time.
Oh, okay.
You stop cooking, we prepare your meal, and we prepare you a good surprise.
Lovely.
Happy birthday to dad today.
Thank you.
Hope he enjoys it.
Yushun, you had a gathering of some friends not so long ago.
Oh, yeah.
So that kind of a simple joy, I would say, of reconnecting with some of my old friends.
And we didn't meet for like very, very long time, but...
We did, like, separate for quite a while.
But after the moment that we get together again, it feels like, yeah, we're just always there.
Who are these people?
These are the people that I met from a concert.
And we share the same interests.
That's why we hang out and go to some KTVs and have dinners.
Wow, you met people at a concert.
Yes.
And you've continued your friendship.
Yeah, and a bunch of people, actually.
Really?
We didn't like it directly during the concert, but after the concert we like people may have gatherings or activities.
And then I meet these people.
Oh, interesting.
Yeah.
And, you know, that night we we talk for hours about music, about life, everything.
And what really touched me was one of them said that next morning he texted me.
Last night, I felt like a reset button.
I feel recharged.
And even though we walk in that park all night, I didn't feel tired at all.
Wow.
Yeah, I think that is the strength and energy of getting into that friendship that you really cherish.
So sometimes that happiness doesn't come from grand events or perfect plans sometimes just the right person at the right time.
So that really reminded me of the power of connection and how deeply energizing it is to be truly seen and understood and have that friendship.
I love that you just put yourself out there too.
Looking for new friends or not looking for new friends.
You just saw I guess it was through an online group, chat or online community a shared interest, a concert.
Was it the Ed Sheeran concert?
No.
The May Day.
Yeah, the band.
Okay, cool.
You meet these people.
You're open to establishing a friendship from a community that you know kind of entered into online.
I love that because I'm kind of jealous of it.
I would never do that.
I would never ever, ever do that same here.
Really, why wouldn't you do that?
It's like now I feel like socializing, even with like-minded person, can be exhausting.
Yeah, that can be like energy consuming for introverted personalities.
We just couldn't share for many times of the joy part, even though it is a happy hour, let's say a happy time shared.
And compared to that, I'd rather spend the evening with some very good old friends whom I've known for years.
I know, but how are we supposed to make new friends, you and I, if we never do stuff like that?
Then you need friends like me to introduce you to the same two groups.
Yeah, to force us into it.
Stick closer to the E person, the extroverted ones.
How long have you known each other with the group?
I think it's more than two years now.
Wow.
And you get together just every once in a while.
Not that often, but yeah.
That's really special, isn't it?
All right.
I'll save my happy place until next time as I look at the clock, because that will do it for today's roundtable.
Thank you so much to you, Shin, and you, Sean.
And thank you, of course, as always, to you for sharing your time with us as well.
My name is Steve, and we all hope you'll come back again next time.
