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The article discusses Professor Zhang Yihua's Chinese-English Dictionary of Chinese Folklore and Customs (DCFC), which covers various aspects of Chinese culture. While the dictionary is praised for its innovative approach and extensive coverage, it is also criticized for its deficiencies. The article highlights omissions of certain terms, an imbalance in the inclusion of related words, and inaccurate translations. Suggestions for improvements include deleting inaccurate or superfluous equivalents, adding transliterations and loan translations, and providing better usage labels and cross-references. Despite its shortcomings, the DCFC is recognized for its valuable contribution to the study of Chinese folklore and customs. [Extracted from the article]

Civil partnerships first became available to mixed-sex couples in England and Wales in December 2019. To date, there has been no research exploring the perspectives of mixed-sex couples who choose to become civil partners. We interviewed 21 people, as individuals or in couples, who were considering, planning, or had already entered into a civil partnership. Our thematic analysis resulted in two themes. In Free from the patriarchal baggage of marriage: Civil partnership as a clean slate of equality, we discuss how participants portrayed marriage as imbued with problematic traditions. In contrast, civil partnerships were portrayed as a contemporary form of relationship recognition that was in fitting for them and their relationships. In the second theme, Doing thing differently? Rejecting or reimagining weddings we discuss how participants critiqued traditions to navigate whether and how to reject them entirely, or attempt to creatively reimagine them. We consider the implications of our results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

AbstractOn 7 October 2023, 3,000 Hamas terrorists from the Gaza Strip infiltrated Israel. Over 1,300 people were killed on that day, and over 240 were abducted to Gaza. On October 8, Israel declared war on Hamas. The current study delves into the prevailing phenomenon of spontaneous war weddings held in military settings during the war. Drawing from Terror Management Theory (TMT) and utilizing an ethnographic approach, we analyze published media reports of these weddings. We suggest that this phenomenon is a sign of three terror management anxiety buffer mechanisms activated in view of current national and personal mortality salience: the validation of cultural worldviews; the enhancement of self-esteem; and the pursuit of proximity, in the form of a sense of closeness to attachment figures. All three anxiety-buffer mechanisms contribute to the fortification of psychological defenses, the denial of death, and the maintenance of psychological equanimity in view of this incomprehensible threat. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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This ethnographic study seeks to position Turkish women within the lucrative global bridal industry, which is today heavily influenced by the style, aesthetics and consumer values of the American wedding. It will add to the existing literature by examining Turkish brides' participation in transnational networks that promote the commodification of weddings in Turkey – a country where, for many, weddings were until quite recently low-budget affairs designed to maximize newlywed profits. We will explore how such networks establish and reinforce bridal rules and codes through wedding props such as gowns, cakes, jewellery, flatware, china and honeymoons. By unpacking the complexities, symbolism and meaning of the contemporary Turkish bride, we will move beyond simple binaries to examine how tradition and modernity overlap and intersect and how modernity is an intrinsic part of the evolution of traditional Turkish wedding practices. This study will also critique processes of (American) cultural assimilation and reveal how Turkish brides are negotiating western trends, influences and the 'wedding-industrial complex'. Through lifestyle marketing and other industry practices, these networks are prescribing how Turkish women – regardless of their socio-economic and ethnic backgrounds, educational and class status and cultural and religious beliefs – should perform the bridal role. Moreover, because of its ties to aesthetics, style and fashion, the lavish American-style wedding has also become the ultimate platform for the display of purchasing power in Turkey – a way to replicate the conspicuous consumption of the wealthier, leisured classes that, for many Turks, has become synonymous with modernity and elevated social status. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article considers the social and symbolic work of Hisor as a site of Tajikistan’s cultural heritage. Hisor carries with it an array of meanings and represents a convergence of multiple spheres of social life: leisure, education, life-cycle rites and religiosity. Hisor’s flexibility allows it to materialize Tajikistan’s governing ideology as one local project of modernity. This article discusses three contexts in which visitors experience Hisor as heritage: tourist visits to the ‘Old Madrassa’ museum, wedding photographs in front of the fortress walls and pilgrimages to the shrine of Makhdumi Azam. The heritage practices and discourses associated with Hisor offer a complex case study of how the temporal ambivalence of heritage operates on the ground in Central Asia and suggest some of heritage’s utility as a social practice for instantiating cultural memory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper examines how stylistic norms of wedding photography express, affirm, adapt, and reshape religious and secular values by combining ethical considerations with qualitative ethnographic observations. The first part offers a critique of the distinction between civil secular and religious weddings in current scholarship. In the second part, the relation between norms and values in an ethics of wedding photos is elaborated. The discussion is illustrated with examples from a study with 27 married couples and their wedding photos. The study reveals two key aspects: In the production of wedding photos, the triangular relation between the couple, their guests, and the location, the so-called locationship, is staged through the lens of the camera. In this triangle, the blending of religious and secular norms and values could be observed. Another significant aspect is how norms and values originating from wedding photography of religious ceremonies continue to impact secular norms and values. It is particularly noteworthy that religion serves as an aesthetic matrix in wedding photography, contributing to a "visual enchantment", irrespective of whether the ceremony is religious or secular in nature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this study is to reveal how exchangees construct their public spaces for collective practices in a built environment that is abandoned and analyse these places along with collective practices retrospectively through changing daily life practices. Exchangees migrated from Greece to Turkey because of the population exchange decision which was taken in the Treaty of Lausanne in 1923. Due to the fact that the exchangee's identity and culture are visible through collective practices in public spaces, eight collective practices, which are weddings, hıdrellez, religious celebrations, official holiday celebrations, seeing-soldiers-off, seasonal preparations, funeral ceremonies, and public announcements of bad news are selected. These places, where collective practices are performed, are the subject of the research. The first-generation exchanges, for their collective practices, besides building spaces of their own, also settled in places that were left by the Greeks. The study focuses on these public spaces. The sample group of this study is the exchangees in Bursa, Görükle village who migrated from Greece. The methods of the study are analysing archive materials in the form of text, photo and maps and memory interviews conducted with the second and third generation exchangees who still use these public places. As a result of the study, it was revealed that the exchangees restructured the collective practice places in order to establish a sense of belonging and reinterpreting their culture and identity in the new settlement. The study concluded that the places of collective practices, spatial memory, the identity of the exchangee and the public spaces left by the Greeks have been transferred by spatial memory. This study reveals the influence of spatial memory, the relevance of belonging, reinterpreting of exchangees’ culture and identity over the restructuring of the physical environment and the transfer of these between generations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the discovery and reunion of Lilla Leach's 1913 wedding dress with the rest of the Leach collection at the Oregon Historical Society's museum. Lilla and her husband John were accomplished individuals who left their property to the City of Portland, establishing the Leach Botanical Garden. Lilla's nephew donated many of their belongings to the museum, including the wedding dress. The dress, featuring elaborate lace and a high waist, was identified as Lilla's through visual comparison with their wedding photograph. The article also mentions that the museum's standards and practices have changed over time, and the dress has since been added to the museum's collection. [Extracted from the article]

Banging together pots and pans has become established as a common protest technique in Spain and across the world. Pot-banging can be linked to charivari: a centuries-old, Europe-wide, nuptial practice that subjected a marrying couple to mocking moral critique, which was also adapted for political ends. This article, however, distinguishes between nuptial charivari (the cencerrada) and recent political pot-banging (the cacerolada). The former suffered a process decline and disappearance while the latter, separately, was imported into Spain from Latin America in the late 1980s. The lack of connection between the two is reflected in different terms, but can be further established through close attention to their respective staging, gendered nature, meaning and sound. The case of Spanish pot-banging sheds light on the fate of 'traditions' during the Transition from the Francoist dictatorship to democracy, particularly in terms of changing notions of individual rights, civility and gender relations, and has implications for how historians approach the history of collective action. Historians should pay greater attention to how techniques are transmitted and learned within and across borders. The history of modern protest is perhaps more disjointed than modernizing approaches suggest. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the urban centers of Türkiye, where cultural changes are more widespread and effective, wedding processional is replaced by the solemnization of the marriage at indoor weddings, and the Kūdegū (old Turkic language; refers to bridegroom, son-in-law) awaiting the bride's arrival at the boy's house is replaced by differences in the way of the bride and groom's entry together; moreover, while wedding rituals such as the bridal bath and groom's hammam are being forgotten, bachelor/bachelorette parties are on the rise. The beliefs and practices related to the bride being taken out of the girl's house with a special ceremony have deep meanings, such as blessing the bride who has just joined the family, acclimatizing the bride who feels like an outsider and avoiding her from these feelings, and protecting the bride and groom from the körmös (spirits in Turkic mythology, devilish entities living in the underworld), bad spirits, and the evil eye. In this paper, the structure, function, practices, and beliefs of the rituals surrounding the bride and groom on the last day of Anatolian Turkish weddings are analyzed using a qualitative research method. In addition, this study identified the betrothal, performance, beliefs, and practices surrounding the ritual of "bridal pick up" among Anatolian Turks and evaluated the symbols and signs in the ritual procedures in the functional context of the origins and reflections of traditional Turkish beliefs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Culture and customs are habbits that have prevailed between generation in a society whose existence function as a guideline for thinking and acting in that society. The Gayo community who live in Banda Aceh combines the culture and costums of Gayo marriage with the costoms and culture of Coastal Aceh, so it is necessaary to study how its existence continus today. The purpose of this study was to determine the existence of the Gayo marriage customs held in Banda Aceh, identify the stages or processions of the Gayo marriage ceremony, and determine the influence of other cultures on Gayo marriage customs in Banda Aceh. The subjects in this study amounted to 4 people consisting of 3 people who carried out the marriage procession and 1 Gayo traditional leader. The results showed that the stages of the Gayo traditional wedding ceremony procession in Banda Aceh consisted of: the process of pre-wedding activities consisting of 4 parts: kusik, sisu, pakok, and paden; wedding preparations are divided into six parts: risk, resek, rise, kono, kite and teniron; the implementation of the marriage is divided into eight parts; studying, giving up, bejege, mah bai, beru, ukum deliberation, dalem ceremony and reckoning mas. The ceremony after the wedding consists of 2 parts, mah beru and mah kero. Of all these stages, there are several stages that accompany the Aceh Pesisir wedding customs such as the night of berinai, peusijuk, exchange of batil (betel places), eating besan on the day of the reception (eating with the bride's family), headdresses and aisle colors which tend to be bright colors. The bride and groom have held a traditional Gayo wedding ceremony in Banda Aceh and this happened because of the influence of the culture of the residents with various tribes living in one area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aimed to explore the symbolic meaning of the tradition of drinking tuak during the wedding ceremony of North Padang Lawas Regency from the perspective of Shafi'i Madhhab. This fieldwork-based research uses legal sociology and legal anthropology approaches with participatory observation techniques and in-depth interviews with traditional leaders, scholars, and people involved in the tradition of drinking tuak in wedding ceremonies in North Padang Lawas Regency. The analysis conducted in this study shows that although drinking tuak is contrary to Islamic teachings, this practice remains an integral part of the local community's cultural heritage in the context of traditional events such as margondang, which is a celebration held at the groom's house to welcome the bride's arrival, lasting one or three days and nights, accompanied by a tor-tor (traditional dance) procession.1 However, social change and religious influences have affected tuak consumption patterns, with many individuals consuming clandestinely or out of public view. Changes in tuak consumption patterns indicate disharmony between local traditions and religious teachings, where the prohibition and policing of alcoholic beverages have changed how tuak is served and consumed in traditional events. From the perspective of the Shafi'i Madhhab, the tradition of drinking tuak can be categorised as 'urf fasid, which is a custom that contradicts Islamic law. Therefore, despite its symbolic meaning and solid cultural value, the practice is discouraged or even prohibited in religious terms. This research concludes that it is essential to raise public awareness about the dangers associated with tuak consumption and to develop permissible alternatives that align with local, religious and cultural principles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]