Hokkien Marriage (Culture & Custom)

 In Chinese society, the system of marriage is a concept of monogamy, which is marriage between only one men(husband) and one woman(wife). However, there was a concept of polygamy that was common at the ancient of Chinese.  A Chinese man can marriage with more than one women.  There was no limit for the man to marriage with how many women's, and it depended on the income of the men. The process of marriage for Chinese is very complex and complicated with a lot of steps.  All of the Chinese will following the step refer to our own groups such as Hokkien, Hakka and Guangxi. Normally, the process of each group are similar, but there have some difference due to the different culture ad custom.

I am a Malaysian Chinese.   Majority of Chinese in Malaysia own their group with different dialects.  For example, Hakka, Guangdong, Guangxi, Hainan and Hokkien.   Every subgroup of Chinese have their own culture like the traditional customs for pray, obsequies and wedding. As a Chinese Hokkien, I has follow the culture of Hokkien that inherited from my ancestors. What is Hokkien? Hokkien actually is a dialect of southern Min Chinese that is also spoken in Malaysia and mostly spoken in Penang, Kedah, and my state, Perak. There have a lot of traditional cultures followed by us. In my blog, I will share about this traditional wedding, which is Hokkien Marriage.

My home town is Kuala Kangsar, Perak.  Kuala Kangsar is a district that has a majority of Hokkien Chinese and they had set up the Hokkien association Kuala Kangsar since 1897 .   I am staying in one of the villages in Kuala Kangsar, called Enggor.   Enggor is a very small village and the facilities in this village is not really enough.   Why I say like this?  When my mother needs to buys some meat or vegetable for our dinner, she need to take a bus around 15 minute to buy it due to my family have not own a car.   Sometime, the bus may delay until we need to spend over a hour to wait for the bus. When in the night, there are only one restaurant Chinese, and one "mak mak " are operating. Even though Enggor is lack of facilities, but this village still has some good inside.   Our relationship between villagers are well connected and there is a famous tourist attraction here, which is Vitoria Bridge.

  Hi everyone, my name is Hwang Shean Loo, people usually call me Loo.   I am a 21-years-old student and currently stay in my home town during this "covid-19 period" . My family is a big "Hokkien" family, but now I only stay with my mothers and two sisters.  My whole family and my father's side relatives are the believer of a religion due to our ancestral house is a small temple. I am live in my ancestral house which showed in the first picture.  The people inside the pictures are a part of my farther side relatives.