"Are you kidding? I do not have time for that--we just registered at the household affairs office and started our life," Chen Chao said, shrugging. "Those old customs are not necessary for a Beijinger like me."

"Well, I haven't had my wedding yet, but I spent thousands on the wedding pictures and albums," chirped up petite and lovely He Shan. "But we'll pick an auspicious date to hold the ceremony, a combination of numbers from the solar and lunar calendars. I am looking forward to it. We will have three parties: one for his family here, one for my family in the south and a nice dinner with classmates as well."

My Chinese colleagues, all under 30, had laughed uproariously when I queried them about traditional rituals covering ancient Chinese wedding customs. My list ranged from shedding nuptial tears and delivering the dowry; making up the bridal bed and delivering the bride to her new home; unveiling the bride and drinking from the marriage cup, and finally, teasing the newlyweds.

"Most of us who have weddings do traditional things, but in a modern way," explained Ting Ting. "Women may wear a traditionally red wedding dress while most men wear Western suits. I was lifted into a nice automobile and delivered to my new home. Custom dictates that the bride's feet aren't supposed to touch the ground and I don't even know why. I'm embarrassed to say that I know nothing about those bitter gourds tied with a red silk thread..."

"Could be only a regional custom," I replied. "In the Zhou Dynasty dating back 3,000 years, the bride and groom drank wine in their bedroom from bitter gourds linked by a red silk cord. This was often the first time they were alone and the first thing they did together. The bitter mixed with the wine meant that they'd stick together through thick and thin."

"Wah! A foreigner telling Chinese customs that we have already forgotten," wailed He Shan. "I hope this doesn't become a trend."

"But my husband's family insisted on an elaborate ceremony," interrupted Chen Xia. "His people are from Tongliao, Inner Mongolia. They consulted a fortune-teller for our wedding date, I wore a red qipao, and we both did three ceremonial bows to his parents. They even had me sit on an axe because it means good luck." She smiled bashfully and continued, "I did all this out of respect for our families; actually what I really wanted was something more modern."

"So many young Chinese blindly copy the West," commented George Wang. "China is a significant superpower: We Chinese should be more discriminating about the new customs we adopt. The old ways must not be forgotten."

"How about a dowry?" I asked the group.

"Very necessary," the girls chorused enthusiastically. "In fact," added Chen Xia, "We had this elaborate wedding so my in-laws could collect dowry money for us. They had paid out so much cash to other families and friends for the weddings of their children; my wedding was their turn to receive gifts and money."

"Yes, that's important," Xu Lin added. "Only 40 or 50 years ago people had so little, no one had parties or took pictures or collected dowry money; everything was forgotten because China was poor. But in the 1970s some traditions began again. Weddings have always served as ways for families to network and reaffirm their culture."

"And to display wealth and success," Ting Ting remarked. "Some Chinese are fabulously wealthy these days, so instead of parading a dowry through the streets as they did in the past, people hold grand parties at five star hotels. It's very impressive."

"All I want is for my wife to be happy," retorted Chen Chao. "That ostentatious display is foolishness, capitalist corruption."

"Your marriage will be eternally successful," Xu Lin remarked. "You've discovered, like any man anywhere on the Earth, that if you keep your wife happy everything will be ok."

"Well," said George Wang, "My wife wasn't happy unless we did it up in style. I spent a bundle on the wedding preparations: the clothes, the dinners at fancy restaurants, the rented car…"

"Was it fun?" I asked.

"Yes," he admitted. "Trying to bite an apple hanging from a cord made me accidentally kiss my wife in public; that's an old teasing tradition, by the way."

"Yet we're becoming more Westernized, in the sense that material goods and consumption play a greater and greater role regarding happiness," He Shan noted.

"How ironic," I remarked, "Foreigners come to China seeking the glory of the Chinese past and it's disappearing before our very eyes. Traditions, language and food: they are all necessary to preserve one's culture."

"Don't worry," Chen Chao admonished me. China follows the French proverb: plus les choses changent et plus elles restent les memes." (The more things change, the more they stay the same.)

The author is an American living in Beijing