Why do women have to twist their faces before getting married?

Face opening, also known as face twisting, face opening, etc., is a beauty method with a long history in West Asia, Central Asia and East Asia that uses thread to remove hair on women's faces.

China

In China, from north to south, such as Hebei, Jiangxi, and Guangxi, there is a custom of women opening their faces. And it is usually performed by female elders before a woman gets married. It is a kind of coming-of-age ceremony. A woman shows her face once in her life, and then she doesn't show her face again if she gets divorced, remarries, etc. In some places, before the wedding, the host will cook "Kaimian dumplings" and give them to relatives and friends as a sign of good luck. In some places, the bride will sing the "Kaomian" song to wish the bride a child.

During the specific operation, the performer who opens the face uses a thin linen thread, pulls it in the middle with one hand, and ties the two ends to the thumb and index finger of the other hand. Or bite the middle with your mouth and cover both ends with your hands to form a crossed triangle. The twine was twisted around the face of the disfigured woman to remove the hair. In addition, eyebrows and sideburns should also be trimmed.

Side effects

There are some side effects of facial opening, such as it may cause hair to grow into the skin.

Legend

There is a legend about the origin of face-opening: It is said that Emperor Yang of the Sui Dynasty robbed civilian girls indiscriminately, so a family removed all the hair on the face of their married daughter, and put on makeup and makeup to pretend The City Goddess carried it to the groom's house to avoid inspection by the officers and soldiers. Later, everyone followed suit and it became a custom.

2. Telling stories to show your face

The power of storytelling. That is, when the main character appears for the first time in the book, the storyteller introduces his face, skin color, clothing, body shape and the utensils he carries in order to arouse the audience's imagination and show the distinct image of the character. There are two types: prose and verse. Xihe Dagu and other music genres also use this technique when talking about big books.

Face-opening

Face-opening is the ritual of removing facial hair and cutting the forehead and sideburns. One of the signs of marriage for women in ancient China. Also known as twisted noodles and twisted faces. The facial opening can be done at the bride's family before getting into the sedan chair, or it can be done after marrying into the groom's family. The person with an open face must be a woman with parents and children. Use new tweezers, five-color silk thread or coins. After opening the face, the person who opened the face should be rewarded with a seal.

The routine operation procedure is as follows: first apply powder on the face, especially on the edges of the hair. Then use a red double thread to transform it into a "small mechanism" with three heads. Pull one head with each hand, and the thread is stretched straight between the two hands. The other head has to be bitten and pulled apart with the mouth to form a "cross" shape. At this time, just move your hands up and down, and the red double lines will separate and close. When the thread touches a person's face, the hair can be twisted out. This task is mostly done by aunts and sisters-in-law, and some also ask grandmothers to do it.

Before the bride opens her face, the groom must first pick out three handfuls of hair on the bride’s face. This move sounds scary. How can the bride bear to pick out three hairs on her head? ! It's just a statement, it's just a three-time explanation, it's symbolic. What is the symbolic meaning here? Anyone who knows the local customs knows that if the groom is willing to take action, it means that everything will go as planned during the wedding night, and that he will open the bride's new life. Of course, the groom will not do anything lightly, and the bride will not let you do it casually. If you want to do it, you must use a shelled cooked duck egg and smear it on the bride's face first. Here, there is actually hidden what the bride wants to say and the groom’s approval. The bride asked the groom to do this, to show that she was as perfect as a duck egg, and it was the groom who made her no longer a beautiful girl. However, while the bride was busy proving herself, she forgot one thing: check whether the groom behaved before the wedding. I'm afraid there was no ready-made method at that time. This seems unfair to the bride. I wonder if the current brides care about this or if there are any new methods. If you haven't explored it, you won't know.