Wedding Customs
01 · Historical Records
The Huihun (Return Wedding) ceremony is a traditional folk celebration prevalent in the Korean ethnic area of Yanbian, held to commemorate the sixtieth wedding anniversary. Like the Huajia banquet (sixtieth-birthday feast), the Huihun ceremony roughly took shape from the mid-17th century to the mid-18th century. In the ancestral conception of the Korean people, the completion of the cycle of the "sixty-year jiazi" is called "zhoujia" or "huijia" (return of the cycle); zhoujia became a special temporal concept carrying the meaning of longevity and good fortune. Among the Korean people, being able to hold a Huihun ceremony is a special honor and a symbol of noble character. The Huihun ceremony thus fully reflects the Korean people's social ethics and values that esteem family harmony and harmonious interpersonal relations. The Huihun ceremony is one of the important life rituals unique to the Korean ethnic group. It is of great value for studying the folk-cultural characteristics of the Korean people and the course of their social and cultural origins and evolution.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
The Huihun ceremony is even more ceremonious than an ordinary wedding. On this day the elderly couple, dressed in full wedding attire, performs the rites of the wild-goose offering (dianyan), the mutual bows (jiaobai), and the joined nuptial cups (hejin) in the courtyard; they then enter the house to share together the abundant great table (wedding feast), receiving the blessings and congratulations of their descendants and of all the men, women, old, and young of the village. Next, the "bridegroom" and "bride" sit separately in bridal sedan chairs and, amid the crowding of relatives and friends, parade once around the village in a festive and warm atmosphere. Not everyone is qualified to enjoy this traditional rite. First, the couple must have been married for sixty full years, and must have remained true to each other in love, enjoyed health and longevity, kept a harmonious family, raised healthy children, and abided by the law. Beyond this, two further conditions must be met: first, they must be each other's original spouses; second, all their children must still be living, with none having committed crimes or served prison terms.
The sixtieth cycle
The sixty-year cycle is called a return of the cycle, carrying wishes for longevity and auspiciousness; to hold the ceremony is a mark of standing.
The wild-goose offering
A table is set in the courtyard and the goose offering placed upon it, the first rite of the wedding repeated after sixty years.
Bowing exchange and the shared cup
The couple, back in wedding dress, bow to each other and share the cup before entering to a great feast and the congratulations of the whole village.
The sedan chair round the village
The newlyweds of this day, that is the two aged spouses, ride in sedan chairs round the village, repeating the journey of their own wedding day.
The great wedding table
Inside, the couple share a lavish table while children, grandchildren and villagers come forward one by one to congratulate them.
The six conditions of eligibility
Not everyone qualifies: an original couple of sixty years, faithful and healthy, harmonious and law-abiding, with all their children living and clear of prison.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
The Huihun ceremony is practiced only in the Korean ethnic area of Yanbian, where the rules are jointly kept by the family and the village. Qualified couples are first vetted by the kinfolk: the spouses must be each other's original partners, the marriage must have completed sixty years, all children must be living with none having committed crimes or served sentences, and the couple must be harmonious, healthy, long-lived, and law-abiding; once vetted, all the men, women, old, and young of the village come to congratulate them, on a scale more lavish than the original wedding. In Yanbian, the Huihun ceremony and the Huajia banquet together serve as the measure of longevity; failure to hold one is not a matter of poverty but of lacking the fate, so villagers regard it as a lifelong point of pride.
Other submitting regions for the same item: Wedding Customs · Wedding Customs · Wedding Customs · Wedding Customs · Wedding Customs · Wedding Customs · Wedding Customs · Wedding Customs · Wedding Customs · Wedding Customs.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
The Huihun ceremony relocates the entire ceremonial course of a wedding to sixty years later: the wild-goose offering, the mutual bows, and the joined cups are all present, and after the rites the couple rides in a bridal sedan around the village once. This set of rites is valued because it publicly displays three things at once — the bond between spouses, family harmony, and the wellbeing of children — witnessed together by neighbors and fellow villagers. A couple still standing in the courtyard to complete these rites after sixty years is the most persuasive moral instruction in the locality; the difficulty lies here too — the ceremonial course is elaborate, few young people are willing to see it through from beginning to end, and the masters of ceremony who intone the rites and the drummers are gradually dwindling.
05 · Associated Representative Bearers
Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:
- Anfucheng 04-1986
- Mojinghai 05-3058
- Lan Yugen 05-3059
- Lei Qisong
- Wu Yumei
- Fang Weihua
- Guojinglin
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
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