68 Practices ot Guanxi Production Gift Giving es, the engagement process created ny opportunities for different elves in their guanxi with the gift receiver. In each case where I saw sets people to give different gifts. As discussed earlier. the groom gave gifts of brothers giving gifts to their father or one of their ot to the bride, the bride's parents gave gifts to the groom, the groom's ne same amount. For one to give more than the other parents gave gifts to the bride, and the groom's elder female relatives ould declare one of the relations to be closer than the others. On gave gifts to the bride. The gifts were both nur and large. In her hand, by giving mor d dition if one of the two families had an event in assert the closeness of a guanxi. Thus, when deciding how much to gift-money, the other family would send a representative to give some spend on congratulatory gifts or how much gift-money to give, Fengjia On three ite occasions (including the twelfth-day sidered how close the guanxi was(which perhaps had bove), the person who gave the most gift-money at a given event was defined on previous giving occasions), how close the guanxi could be the father of the financee of a member of the host household. nd how close they wanted it to be. This calculation was then viewed in Next consider the giving of cloth to the bride when she was intro a comparative fashion vis-a-vis what others were giving. Likewise, whe duced to her husband's older female relatives. Recall the importance relatives from a womans natal home gave more eggs than anyone else kinship terms in the defining and acknowledging of guanxi. In both the on the occasion that marked the birth of the womans child, they engagement ceremony and the marriage ceremony. the bride was likely serted that their guanxi was close enough to be counted on, and shoule to be formally introduced to her older female relatives. I saw this intro be counted on as a first resort, if the woman for some reason needed duction done twice and was told that it was a part of every marriag ny help, As discussed above, to say their guanxi could be counted on ceremony and most engagement ceremonies, Thus many people went was also to say that it was very close through it twice. Even in a wedding where the family had abando There were at least two general strategies that households adopted most of the ceremony on the grounds that it was"feudal, "this for.ey in gift giving. One was to use records to keep track of what others ha introduction still took place. In it each of the groom's elder female rela given them in the past, and when the occasion arose, to give back the cloth the groom's mother introduced them, saying, for. her a niece of tives gave the new bride a piece of cloth. As each gave exact equivalent of what had been given. Several of the households I poke with used their records in this way. Others took a more expansive is your gugu(father's sister). You call her gugu. "The bride then re strategy. They always tried to give more than had been given to them ng relatives with the appropriate term an official in the township seat, went so far as to Though I cannot say how widespread this exact ceremony was, Isa y that one should strain one's economic les to give belle Thireau describes a similar custom in one could to as many people as one couid. when his youngest son g Chinese custom requires the bride to worship her husb and's ancestors and ry g hanging them in all the rooms of his own house and each of his three ur tea to her parents- in-law and other relatives as soon as she enters her new son's houses, he still had piles left over. My general impression e. Raising a cup of tea with both hands, she offers it to her mother-in-laiv nying "Mother-in-law please drink.. Everyone who is uttered tea naturally (such as local offcials and the teacher whose youngest daughter's mai gives the bride in return a red envelope with money or jewelry This custom riage is discussed above)were more likely to have this sort of expansive has persisted until today. (1988:309 style than peasants whose work kept them involved mainly in village Rubie Watson (1986: 626)similarly emphasizes the ritualized enchanges and family social networks of kinship terms in rural Hong Kong wedding ceremonies, though in to managing the closeness of existing gu e cere only men gave re son 1981: 602). In a fictionalized account of the Shaanxi village during prime example of this use of gifts. Marriage was not just a relation be- the 198os, Jia Pingwa(1992: 289)depicts a ritual for creating adoptive tween husband and wife, but rather between two families, To allow for ations, In the establishing of guanxi between various households of both fami many gifts and carries them to his future adoptive child's house Upon