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I'm doing a separate post for this.
While I was in Xiangtan, one of my favorite sponsored students FINALLY picked her wedding date. The wedding party in her village was held on Sunday, November 26th. My darling wife and I jumped on a train on Saturday to attend our dear niece's wedding. By odd coincidence, it turned out that the groom is from Xiangtan.
The groom was Han, but he couldn't escape the challenges to pass the Miao red ribbon. (Yes, there's a red ribbon between the bride and her family and the grooms family.) He was allowed to ask his relatives to do some of the challenges, but had to do the pushups, some drinking, handing out bribes hong bao to the bridesmaids himself. I think he borrowed one of the bride's relatives for one of the singing challenges, since she ended a song in a way I've only ever heard Miao do. His first cousin impressed everyone by opening a beer bottle with her teeth and chugging the whole thing for one of the other challenges.
The bulk of the women on both sides wore traditional Miao clothing (one of my niece's family had a pile of spare outfits that were made available). Even Mrs. Lunatic dressed up.
The wedding meals (a late breakfast around 10 and a mid-afternoon meal) both featured beer and baijiu. Those were held in another relative's courtyard.
There was another party at the groom's house on Monday, but sadly I was on a train getting back to DG. I needed to get back to work today. Also, His Imperial Majesty wasn't feeling well when we left and my daughter checked him into the vet's office on Saturday morning. Happily, the vet was ready to give him back on Monday, so we grabbed him on the way back home.