My fiance lives in China and people tell her that it is customary to give gifts to the bride's parents when they marry. I said, "Okay, what kind of gifts"? She said, "Money and a few other small things". How much money ? 60,000 yuan. Holy cow! That alot of bread I said. With todays exchange rate thats got to be close to $8,000 U.S. This does not sound right to me. Has anyone ever heard of such a thing !

When I lived in Taiwan, a few of my Taiwanese co-workers became engaged. It is customary to give gifts to friends and family when you announce the engagement. Most girls came in and gave beautiful boxes filled with handmade cookies (I would imagine they cost about $20 each) I've also heard of giving the bride's parents money upon engagement. That being said though - I know that the married couples I knew also got a LOT of money from friends and family (people they barely knew) for wedding presents. To be honest, 60,000 yuan does sound a little steep.

I would ask your fiance to elaborate on the exact customs carried out by her own family as I'm sure everyone is different.

Jesus, is that is the custom? I hope it's the only occasion to fork over money like that ??
If no one can help you with that question, I'll call my cousin, he has several friends there and travels there often. Maybe telling folks the province would help, customs may vary in a large country.

If you find this to seem correct. It would be a good time to bring up another custom, prenup agreement...
God Speed...

I don think so. Consider yourself in the future. It s up to you. That s not request. You may marry to the money peron. IF gift, something special like 24 gold ring ( $100) in red box because chinese custom like the red color for lucky. Good luck.

Yowsa! Did you try googling "Chinese engagement customs" or something of the sort?

I would imagine there are A LOT of Chinese people who don't have $8000 sitting around to fork over...a lot of Americans too.

There are a few other times they give money - I remember lots of red envelopes (for putting money in) and they're given out at Chinese New Year too.

Gift giving customs are SO different in Chinese culture.

You'll want to talk to your fiancee about the actual expectations of her and her parents, there are often some very large amounts of money given. They can hopefully be understanding of the cultural differences and everyone can find the customs they want to keep from each side. Kathy told me about some of these customs, many of which I don't remember well... As I recall, one of the customs is for the parents (I think of the bride) to buy a home for the married couple to live in, which would certainly make such an engagement/marry gift more reasonable. I'm sure customs vary by region though.

China has some very large monetary gifts. But in the end it hopefully comes out even. If you receive a large gift at the wedding, you should in the future return that much and more back to that family, such as when thier son/daughter marries. Certainly, I don't know much about these things, but I do know Kathy will help me through the important ones, just as we do everytime I go to visit her. She has wonderful understanding parents. Hopefully, you'll find the same and everyone can be comfortable with the traditions and customs everyone decides to keep.

Brian (knows little about these customs)

That's true!! NO KIDDING!! This is kinda called "gift money" or "bridal money", also you need to pay the money to buy the "cake coupon" which is given to the bride's close relatives and friends. Well, I know it's really a shock to americans. But it's really our custom...because the parents thinks they spent so much on their little girl and now she grew up and started her own family. The Chinese parents really thinks it's reasonable.

So a chinese wedding usually costs HK$200K or more, that's around USD25K. Cause chinese wedding reception usually costs around USD650 or more per table, and we like to invite all relatives to attend the wedding banquet. Heehee...that's why there are so many late marriage in China, the guys need to save certain enough money to get married.

My mom asked for that too at the first place when my hubby proposed to me. After all, we neogtiate and compromise this is a mixed wedding. We skipped the chinese reception in HK and just held a wedding party in the US. Before I left HK, I invited my close relatives to have some dinners and they still gave me "red packet money", so I gave all these money to my mom. My hubby and I paid for our wedding, but my mom still got me some jewelery. The most important is the relationship between my mom and hubby gets better and better now, they care for each other. Good Luck!! Communicate more is important!!

The Customs vary on this, in China. If I were you, I'd investigate a bit further. That's the biggest sum I've heard of on the mainland. Had my wife asked for a monetary gift to her father, in any more than a token amount, the answer would have been a simple "no" but that's me.

I was informed that it was customary for the groom to host (pay for) the banquet but the cost of the Banquet can vary widely and is certainly negotiable as to where and menu etc. We had a very nice banquet in Nanning for 55 people for less than $500 or 4000RMB.

You'll get a lot more informed opinions on this by posting at http://www.candleforlove.com

First of all, I wanna fix one of the items Brian listed, that groom’s family should buy the new home, actually.

I very much agree with Vivi's opinion about the culture here, and she said exactly what the truth is. I am from Zhejiang Province, the east of China, and the culture of this here is very obeivous too. The guys for having the wives are getting more and more difficult, and we disscuss on the forums here about this more and more too. For some basic items, you should own at least an apartment/a house, best to have a car. Before wedding, you should send girls' parents a bit of money, varies from 60,000 RMB - 108,000 RMB, or even more. For here, guy's family should prepare an apartment/a house before marry. (The cost of it is rising. Here, it’s about 8,000-10,000 RMB/square meters, so if the apartment is about 90m2, so the cost is at least 700,000 RMB to buy one.) If bride's family is rich enough, or they are willing to help you, they will help to decorate your new home, and buy some applicance, such as TV, A/C… The wedding party/recpetion is always grand, and groom should pay the fee of it. Of course, bride's parents can help some as well. Most important festivals, you should buy a lot of gifts for girls’ parents to show your respect to them. So the cost is always including: a new apartment with decoration + a new car + gift money to bride's parents before marry + wedding party and reception. Thinking about this, 60,000 RMB isn't very rediculous, right? I don't mean to scare any of you, but it's the truth here, and of course, giving the gift money to parents is just a custom too! Earlier, my mom was talking with me about this too, but they understand the culture differences now, and always say: Long as you are happy with each other and enjoying a great life together, we are happy for you both.

My Jiejie and Jiefu are just married last month, and before that, they worked out a lot of wedding problems too. However, they are very happy together now! I hope you can talk with her more, and try to understand the culture here, at the same time! If you really love each other, you both can talk through/compromise it easily without question! Just a matter of how many pieces of bread, right?

Kathy




Chinadaily: 2007.10.23 China's newly-weds spend heavily: report
Weddings are so important in China that couples are willing to fork out about 20 times their monthly income on getting hitched and everything that comes with it.
China's newly-weds in urban areas spend 126,600 yuan (16,600 U.S. dollars) on average in 2006 when getting hitched, Thursday's Chongqing Youth Daily reported, citing a recent survey by the Ministry of Commerce.
An analysis of 60,000 couples living in cities showed that about 64 percent of the spending went on apartment decoration, furniture and household appliances and the rest was spent on the wedding, such as the ceremony, photography, wedding dresses and feast.
The survey said the wedding expenditure was only a small share of the overall marriage cost as most Chinese young couples in the cities tended to buy an apartment and a car before tying the knot.
The survey said that about 81.6 percent of the newly-weds admitted that they had got financial support from parents as their monthly income on average was only about 6,240 yuan.
The survey also showed that about 88.4 percent of the newly-weds chose having wedding photography as a priority and 78.74 chose hosting a wedding banquet.
In contrast, young couples in rural areas spent about 40,000 yuan on average on marriage-related issues, less than one third of their city peers, according to the report.
About 8.49 million couples got married in China in 2006.

lol that is like selling you their son or daughter.

to get marry in china you have to know the custom.
1. don't expect lum sum of money that is not true.
do expect some but not a large amount. it all depend on the family
some family want you the groom to paid a lum some of money in order to married their daughter
but in some you don't have to paid a penny but all show respect to the custom you have to give the bride parent some money.
2. depend what part of china you get married from and what the local custom is. another thing you have to consider is married to (mean you have to go to bride family and live with them) or get married ( bring the bride to your family) these are two differents thing and bride money is consider to be different.

but if i were you tell you fiance you don't have that kind of money to give them what you offer them is what they get
they cannot demand how much you have to give them. if you give them $1k then they will get $1k no more no less.
it true that they will said it short and less but what you give will count. not what they demand.


so you fiance parent want 60000 yuan it about $9k it more like an demand to me.

Let's get some perspective here. Things vary and there a multiple reasons why they do.

First, China is a huge and diverse nation. There are "countryside people" whose entired extended families would never see collectively earn as much money as is being discussed by some in this thread. Then there are wealthy families that would consider these sums a minutia. The vast majority are somewhere in between.

Second, it makes a difference whether it's the first or subsequent marriage and whether for a man or woman. Yes, foreign female marry Chinese males too.

Each USC intending to marry a Chinese person needs to carefully evaluate the situation for themselves, to determine what is reasonable or what they are willing to do. What is customary between Chinese families need not take place when marriages occur between Chinese and foreigners.

Decide what you are willing to do and say so. If it isn't good enough, I suggest you adjust, negotiate or move on.

I was discussing several VJ threads with my wife this morning. When mentioning yours, she reminded me I didn't pay for the liquor at our wedding banquet. I had stipulated that in advance based on my personal standards. As I recall though, this was primarily a BYOB affair, even though in a nice restaurant.

Traditionally the thought was that the female in the Chinese family side raised the daughter and when she is married she becomes totally part of the husband's house - doing chores, raising kids, staying at home, etc.

The time, money, etc., spent on raising the female daughter and then losing her to the groom's family was compensated by large financial contributions by the groom, including lavish gifts, the groom's parent's buying a house for the couple to live in, etc.

Of course on the American side the father of the bride is supposed to shell out the cash for a lavish wedding and for getting the couple on their feet.

Now, imagine if you are an American with a boy and a girl and your son decided to marry a Chinese girl, while your daughter wants to marry an American and you are supposed to follow tradition.

My own take is you have to consider all areas and really talk out what your partner expects, what the in-laws expect and then reach a logical compromise. Given that an American marrying a Chinese involves two very different cultures it means there has to be a middle ground. To have us dismissing all the traditions is rude and possibly destructive to the marriage, but at the same time to expect an American to perform 100% of the traditions of a Chinese wedding is also ridiculous.

I've always felt ill thinking about couples who spend an insane amount of money and over 1 year planning traditional American weddings where the bride wants to act like a princess for a day and it has to be PERFECT.

Even in China marriage vows, the expectations, and the increased divorce rates should put the traditional ways of doing things into question. The marriage is supposed to be the union of two people, not a transfer of wealth, or extended family expected to toss large sums of money around, etc.

This thread does remind me that I really have to nail down some details and get expectations out in the open for my own situation. I've touched on the subject and joked around, but I need to spend time really thinking about how this is going to work.

Yes, it's old European tradition for the bride's family to bear the cost of a wedding in return for not having to continue to feed the unproductive female child and the Eastern tradition to be compensated for providing a servant and breeding stock. Both are outdated and ridiculous by any modern standard but traditions do tend to tenaciously maintain their grasp on societies.

Yep. I think it has to work for the couple and in most cases, more so for the bride. Most guys I know just want the girl and want her to be happy, but hopefully within reason.

What is 'reasonable,' really ranges all over the place too. How wealthy are the couple? First, Second, Third or more marriage? Age of the people involved? What do the in-laws want and expect?

Heck, for some people spending $40K+ for a wedding is just 6 months or less worth of saving, for others $40K would take 5+ years to save, and for others still they spend $40K on flower arrangements.

Most modern day couples from what I have seen, at least in America budget out and plan their own wedding and take care of expenses. Parent's from both sides then chip in what they can afford or come to some agreement.

I would like to thank everyone for their input and experience in this matter. I believe we have resolved the matter with the parents. After much negotiating and trust, the amount has been reduced to 30,000 yuan with half do before the interview and the other half do before the actual wedding. If she doesn't pass the interview for some reason then the 15,000 will be returned to me. I thought about and have agreed to their wishes. It still makes me think that in some strange way that I am purchasing a wife LOL. I hope their are no more surprises like this. I thought I understood a little bit about Chinese culture but he culture threw me a curveball on this one. Wish us luck.

If her interview travel, medical and visa fee are coming out of the $15,000 that will eat up a lot of it. At this point you're looking at about the cost of one trip to China or less.

Actually I have given her money to travel from north China to Guangzhou, Medical exam and money for some notarizations. I will be there with her at the time of the interview and hopefully we can come directly back to states. The 15,000 yuan is for the parents but I have a gut feeling that they will not be spending it and have set it aside for her as just in case money. When I was in China last year, I didn't get a chance to meet them or see where they live but I think they might be well off.

You not meeting them may well have a lot to do with their request for money.

Gift's for the family? I gave my mother-in-law some American gingseg which is considered among many the best (others may argue) and a sign of my sincere caring for her health. I gave brothers and sisters American Silver Eagle coins in the fancy cases you get from the US Mint. I also brough over Godiva chocolates.
The only money I left was for offsetting lao po's expenses on me while I was there (I was never allowed to pay for anything directly except small souvenirs) and she was reluctant to accpet that. I also left her with money to travel to GUZ and then to the USA. I asked about paying the family (even though this was her 2nd marriage) and she said her family doesn't do that as they only want her husband to be sincere in his love for her and daughter.

don't know about each family...8000 dollars is a whole bunch of money.
I am half chinese and my family are really traditional as well.
We had also gift and money during our engagement and our wedding but it is more as a symbol that will
be returned to the couple at the end of the ceremony as a gift for a new start together.

I do not want to indicate that you are getting scamed or anything but you might want to find out a little bit more about the 8000 dollars!

Good luck

Well, I am from China mainland, things like this really depends. Some parents wants alot, and I had a colleague here, she's chinese of course and she married to a chinese guy, but her mom wants 500 000 RMB plus a big apartment, a car and a good stable job... My mom refers to $3000, but in my case, since I am the only one child for my mom so no matter how much it will still be mine eventually ...

So talk to your fiance and see...

Good Luck!!!

Since there are 56 different ethnic groups in China, each with their own customs it is going to vary a lot. Still I would be wary of a family that wanted me to put up 8K before the visa is even approved.

I Am engaged to Girl in China I have known for 2.5 years now. I have worked in the Guangdong area for many years and have Condo in Foshan , China. You are referring to what they call a ( Wealth tip ) that amount you state does seem abit overkill though. As a single man without my parents involved , I was asked to give 18000 yuan and host the wedding banquet in her hometown of Guizhou. Her older sister which was married 6 years ago , Her fiancee , which is chinese and poor had to get his parents to give the " Wealth tip " of 48,000 yuan as his parents were involved in this.
At least being that I am not of Chinese citizenship , I will not also have to host a 2nd wedding banquet in my own hometown which is customary for chinese to do. I have been to several traditional chinese weddings of friends and factory colleagues and it is something to be accustomed to , especially the absence of wedding gifts as we are used to seeing in the states , instead everyone gives the couple little red envelopes with cash inside. Maybe if you host the wedding banquet you can get part of the "Wealth tip " back. But personally unless you are super rich as the tip is supposed to be based on your net worth , I would argue for a lesser amount.

Joey

VISA APROBADA!!!

Second marriage here for us and my Chinese bride's family wants only happiness for their daughter. When I met them I gave the mother some fancy chocolates and the father a fancy lighter. I also gave them a 17th century French lithograph for their house. They gave me a fancy Chinese tea set. I will host a nice dinner for the friends and family in China prior to my love coming to the USA for the American wedding (small ceremony and reception). I am also arranging the traditional photo setup in China. That's it. They're a frugal family and know I am not Mr. Moneybags, love and happiness is the key.