I seriously believe that Chinese could be the most superstitious race in the world.
As you can read here, I am a rebel who is against being a follower without a cause. So you can imagine the kind of headache I face with the requests of the 'elders' i.e. my mom when it comes to adhering to chinese customs.
The first one on the list was PICKING AN AUSPICIOUS DATE for wedding banquet.
Firstly, I am a strong believer that the couple should make every decision there is to make on their wedding, including the date chosen to hold their wedding. Any couple would like hold their wedding on a day that is meaningful to them. Secondly, we all know that the believe that a wedding held on an auspicious date will "last forever" is pure *BS*. If everyone who got married on auspicious date lives happily ever after, there will not be any divorce.
So to have our wedding dates be dictated by a thick red book called "Tung Sing" (the book that chinese refer to for auspicious dates) was really out worldly. Imagine the craziness that this cause. There are only 52 weeks in a year, and out of the 52 weekends, 4 weekends are out of the question because it falls in the 'ghost month' which is a BIG NO-NO for Chinese to hold weddings. That leaves us 48 weekends.
Out of 48 weekends, about half of them are either bad or 'mediocre' dates, which leaves us with 24 weekends.
Out of the 24 weekends, only half of them is 'recommended' for both our 'zodiac', leaving behind 12 weekends.
Out of 12 weekends, only half of them "does not clash with the elders' zodiac", leaving behind only 6 weekends available for us to choose from.
CAN YOU IMAGINE THAT??!!!!
Out of 52 weeks in a year, only 6 weekends are 'approved' for us to hold our wedding banquet !!!
Furthermore, if there was an "auspicious date" to choose for, it should be for the date we officially become husband and wife, i.e. the date of the registration of marriage, not the day we hold our wedding banquet.
So can you imagine the scrambling we went through to outdo so many other couples (who like us need to adhere to this silly chinese custom) to confirm our bookings at sought after restaurants and/or hotels on those very sought after 'auspicious dates' ???
We did it anyway out of respect. While the date chosen for the wedding banquet is a date that was meaningless to us, it will now be meaningful as it will now be the date we got married in the eyes of the families.
There is a silver lining - we got a date that's easy to remember.