My Chinese Kwa or Dragon and Phoenix Bridal Dress

As promised, I will show you my chinese kwa that I wore during my wedding twenty five years ago. Look at the collar, you can see how small my neck was 25 years ago...lol. I think I grow one size bigger now...hehehe.

Take a good look at the blouse, the dragon is alway on top of the phoenix. The dragon represents the male who is the head of the family while the phoenix the female.

The kwa is still in a very good condition and they were embroidered and the threads are still intact and the material is made of good quality unlike the one I show you yesterday, the material is of poorer quality. There are not many of this design on sale now . Geez now I sounded very antique...lol.

Closer look at the embroideries of the dragon and the phoenix.


This is the back of the blouse with a dragon on the left and the phoenix on the right. Dont you agree this is just like a piece of beautiful artwork?

This is the long skirt to go with the above blouse.

Do you still have your wedding dress tucked in some corners of your house?

Wedding Shop - More photos

I always love weddings. :) Last November 2008 was my hubby's nephew's wedding and this November 2009 will be my nephew's wedding. Geez November seems to be a favourite month for weddings. My eldest sis, youngest sister and myself have our weddings in November too but of course different years.

Today I will share some more photos of wedding accessories. You can see my last year posting of photos of these wedding accessories in here.

This is a very traditional wedding costume for the bride and is known as the Dragon and Phoenix Bridal Dress or "Kwa". I have one too and still in good condition. I will show you mine at another post (been 25 years since I last wear it...lol). By now if you have been following my blog, you should know that Chinese love Red. Red represent Good Luck and evil is afraid of the colour Red.

According to Chinese tradition the dragon and phoenix represent the natural balance that exists between man and woman so the dragon and phoenix are always found on chinese wedding dress or cheongsum. Take note that the dragon must always be on top on the phoenix and not the other way round as the man is always seen as the head of the family. In royalty, dragon represents the emperor while the phoenix is his mate.

These are the stuffs (scissors, ruler, comb, red thread, mirror, etc) we need for the wedding mornings that is the combing of hair ritual. A "good luck" woman (a married woman who have lots of children and grandchildren) will comb the hair of the bride or bridegroom.

The below photo is the word double happiness in chinese. This Chinese character "Double Happiness" is a very important symbol in the Chinese culture. It conveys the idea that man and woman are meant to go through life together. Every person, in effect, has a soul mate in this world. You can read the story of the double happiness from source in here.
A modern wedding shop selling all accessories a wedding might need. Very convenient.

Can you find more double happiness in the below photo?

Oh I love these tea sets, they are so pretty and cute. They play a very important role.

The wedding couple will present tea to the parents and relatives in sequence of seniority. Those who receive the tea usually give the bride gifts such as jewellery or money wrapped in red envelope or hong bao.

It can be a very costly affair for wedding especially someone close to you is getting married. I have to give a jewellery piece to my nephew during the tea ceremony and at wedding dinner I need to give a hongbao (with money in red envelope) to my brother in law and sister as wedding gifts. The money can be in hundreds depending where the dinner is held, i.e. four or five stars hotels.

Each dinner table of 10 cost about $700 to $1000. Sometimes wedding couples can make profit out of wedding dinner...lol. The hongbao gifts can help covered the cost of the dinner.

A very chinese wedding bed and accessories on sale in the wedding shop. :) To know more about chinese weddings, you can read the source from here.

Please visit "That's my World" for other parts of the world.

I hope you all will not be bored by my long post today. :)

White Cat

Saw this huge cat sculpture in Waterfront Copthorne Hotel, Singapore.

It is quite huge cause when I spread my two hands across, I could not touch the head and tail altogether and maybe because I dont have very long hands to begin with .....lol.

Pink Saturday-Lanterns

My contribution for pink saturday will these beautiful lanterns that comes in different colours. They were part of a decoration in the shopping mall.

For more pinky participants, please visit Beverly of How Sweet The Sound.

Skywatch-Friday-Istana Park - Part 3

Continuing from posts on flowers in the Istana Park.

Saw these beautiful bougainvillea. I always thought that bougainvillea are pink, did not realise they comes in white too.

Looking up through the arches, you can see both different colours of the plant.
Closer look at the white bougainvillea with the sky in the background.

For other sky watchers, please hop over to Skywatch blog.