In the evening, on our way out of the hotel we saw a bride and groom standing out front of the hotel. The custom is that as each guest arrives for the wedding banquet the bride will offer every man a cigarette and light it for him and offer every lady a sweet. A man stands beside her with a tray with cigarettes and sweets. It’s quite bizarre.
Another bizarre wedding custom was told to us by our guide in Yichang were we boarded our boat for the 3 gorges. When a girl is getting married there she must cry on her wedding day. So for weeks and weeks before her wedding she is coached in crying and spends several hours every day crying. The crying signifies how much she loves her parents, the more she cries, the harder she cries, the longer she cries means the more she loves her parents. If she does not cry enough or sincerely enough then the villagers will know she does not love her parents and this brings shame on her family. If she does not cry enough her parents will beat her.