Chinese Customs essays

Chinese Customs essays China is a land with unique traditional customs. Through the late early twentieth century China was fairly isolated which hindered cultural diffusion from the rest of the world. This meant that its culture was very distinct. Chinas distinct traditional customs included birth and birthday, wedding, and death customs. Birth traditions played an important role in Chinese life. When a child turned one month old, his or her parents would notify the gods. It was also though of that the birth of a girl was unlucky while the birth of a boy was lucky. The Chinese also celebrated birthdays with special customs. The birthdays that they thought were important were twenty-one, thirty-one, fifty-one, sixty-one, seventy-one, and ninety-one. At the age of fifty-one, it is a tradition for a person to receive, from his children, a multipaneled wood screen decorated with symbols of longevity. At the age of sixty-one, a person was to receive the prized gift of a coffin, from his children. When a person reached the age of seventy-one, he was permitted to wear an official robe and cap affixed with a copper button. At this age they are also allowed to use a special walking cane featuring a dove or pigeon carved into its jade handle. When a person turned eighty-one, which was very rare, the village elder notified th e emperor, who ordered the construction of a memorial arch in the honor of the person. An even rarer occasion was the reaching the age of ninety-one, when a person was honored with greetings four times a year by the district magistrate (Traditional). Marriages were arranged by a persons family, usually before they reach the age to marry. The families arranged the marriages with the matchmaker through negotiation, exchanging birth information in the process. The father of the groom wrote a formal proposal of marriage to the father of the bride, which the matchmaker delivered, along with gifts and things such as cakes....