Weddings

A 13-year-old girl in southern China was ordered to go back to school after generating an online buzz for getting married to a 17-year-old boy. The teenagers were wedded in a formal ceremony based on local customs last week after developing a romantic relationship for over a year, the Guiyu township government in Shantou, Guangdong province, said in a statement over the weekend. They planned to get official marriage registration when they were old enough, as many child couples do in rural China. By Chinese law, a man has to be at least 22 years old to get married and a woman at least 20. We didn’t know [it was illegal]. We have now let them take the girl home, to go back to school Mother of

Weddings, birthdays and celebrations have been canceled around the world because of the coronavirus pandemic. In the Chinese city of Wuhan, where the virus first appeared, they are finally resuming as authorities relax a strict lockdown that separated families, friends and lovers for over two months. Now the city is trying to get back to normal. One sign? The reappearance of wedding photoshoots. 

Salt, fat, acid...tea? These things certainly aren’t common items on a wedding registry.  But for newlyweds Lin Chi-ling, a Taiwanese supermodel and actress, and her new husband Akira, a Japanese singer and actor, the pantry essentials were exactly what they wanted. To celebrate Lin’s family heritage, the couple decided to wed in the coastal Taiwanese town of Tainan on Sunday, thrilling the local authorities.          View this post on Instagram                       A post shared by 林志玲chiling (@chiling.lin) on Nov 17, 2019 at 1:35am PST The Tainan city authorities prepared a cartload of goods for Lin to honor local tradition. It included firewood, rice, oil, salt, soy

7.2 per thousand: China’s marriage rate in 2018. The Chinese marriage rate has been falling for five years in a row since 2013, hitting a new low last year, according to the country’s National Statistics Bureau and Civil Affairs Bureau. The number, which comes as China grapples with a falling birth rate and a mounting number of divorces, reflects growing anxiety among younger Chinese who are worried about salary, housing and jobs. In 2013 the marriage rate was 9.9 per thousand, and it’s fallen steadily to 7.2 per thousand to 2018, the statistics show. China’s marriage rate increased steadily from 2006 and peaked at 2013. The falling marriage rate is directly linked to a region’s income leve