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"TO BECOME AN ADULT” (TSOU DAI YAN 做大人)
VALERY M GARRETT
While visiting some Tanka fishing people living in Sun Kai (1) in Tai O, Lantau, in January 1991, we discovered that a bridal ritual was taking place in the next hut. The family were agreeable to our watching the ceremony, but would furnish us with no further details other than the girl, a Miss Ho, was to be married three days hence, and according to the boat people's custom, an auspicious day prior to the wedding must be chosen to perform the rite known as tsou dai yan, meaning "to become an adult”.
When we looked into the darkened hut, we saw Miss Ho kneeling on the floor, while to her left was seated an older woman holding a black umbrella over her. This woman is known as a fortunate woman, hao ming po (hao ming po is missing translation but kept as is) who accompanies the bride throughout the ritual. To be chosen, she must be a woman in middle age, with husband still living and having several sons and grandsons. Holding an umbrella over the bride prevented evil spirits from falling from above and harming her, and is a custom followed by many urban Chinese in Hong Kong on their wedding day.
To one side of the bride were folded some blankets, which were to be taken to the bridegroom's home on an auspicious day chosen for assembling the bed by two fortunate women. Great importance is attached by land-dwellers and fishing people alike to the ritual of preparing the marriage bed, with the traditional emphasis on the continuation of the lineage.
Spread in front of the bride and her companion was a cloth on which were placed some burning candles, some oranges and other items of food. In front of the bride was a bowl with chopsticks placed on it in the form of a cross. In a corner near the door, her mother was unfolding paper money and paper gold offerings to be sent to the ancestors. When she had unfolded a sufficient number, they were passed to the bride who held them, a sheet at a time, into the flame of the candle. As they burned, she dropped them into the bowl in front of her. This ceremony was being conducted next to the family shrine, so the ritual was taking place, in