Hair Combing Ceremony
A hair combing ceremony (梳頭, shūtóu) is also conducted on the eve of the wedding. After showering with water infused with pomelo or pomegranate leaves, the bride and groom change into a new set of clothing and shoes. Attending female family members bless them aloud as they sit in front of an open window with the visible moon or in front of the mirror.
The four blessings are:
- 一梳梳到尾，(First combing, together all your lives)
- 二梳百年好合，(Second combing, harmony in your marriage)
- 三梳子孙满堂，(Third combing, blessed with many children and grandchildren)
- 四梳白发齐眉。(Fourth combing, blessed with longevity)
A sweet soup of pink glutinous balls called tangyuan (湯圓) is served after the hair combing ceremony to wish the couple a complete and sweet marriage.
Read more about this topic: Chinese Pre-wedding Customs
Famous quotes containing the words hair and/or ceremony:
“The drama critic on your paper said my chablis-tinted hair was like a soft halo over wide set, inviting eyes, and my mouth, my mouth was a lush tunnel through which golden notes came.”
—Samuel Fuller (b. 1911)
“That popular fable of the sot who was picked up dead-drunk in the street, carried to the duke’s house, washed and dressed and laid in the duke’s bed, and, on his waking, treated with all obsequious ceremony like the duke, and assured that he had been insane, owes its popularity to the fact that it symbolizes so well the state of man, who is in the world a sort of sot, but now and then wakes up, exercises his reason and finds himself a true prince.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)