The Venice of the East, Wuzhen, is a village that grew up at the junction of two rivers. It used to be an important transport crossroad and very prosperous. Now tourism is the major source of income. It has recently been renovated and rebuilt in the traditional style.
The back of the card has the single word "wedding" in English and there does appear to be a wedding procession crossing the stone bridge. In a traditional Chinese wedding, though there are many variations, the groom would send a sedan chair to collect the bride whose feet must not touch the bare ground. She would wear a red scarf to make sure she didn't see any evil along the way. Red symbolises joy and good fortune, while yellow/gold symbolises good luck and freedom from care.
It's amazing how much detail is taken care of concerning the bride. Very interesting.
ReplyDeleteVery interesting indeed! What a lovely postcard, and such a great story....the brighter colors are dreamy....and stand out most of all....
ReplyDeleteHow do you know abut the red scarf and the feet off the ground if there was only one word in English? Are you winging it? Wushen weddings might have completely different rules for all you know. ;)
ReplyDeleteMaybe they intended the word to be "welding" since they are renovating the village.
Ah, weddings are so delightful, the world over. In India, there is the tradition of the red sari. How did we come up with white, I wonder...purity, I guess.
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