22-05-2025
How a Golden Hairbrush Helped a Bride Connect to Her Chinese Heritage
A rice cooker isn't typically found in a bridal suite. But for Christine Cheng, it ended up being something of a necessity.
On the eve of her mid-March wedding weekend downtown, the Manhattan antique and vintage jewelry dealer arranged herself a hair-combing ceremony—a traditional Chinese ritual related to growth, harmony, and blessings often held on the eve of a wedding and during major life transitions.
One post-ceremony custom is to slurp auspicious tangyuan, chewy glutinous rice balls in sweet soup that symbolize unity, completeness, and sweetness in marriage. There was just one problem. 'It's not really something that you can order from a restaurant,' Cheng explained to Vogue just after the festivities. 'But you can get it at the grocery store very easily. So my mom made me bring a rice cooker, and we made it in the room.'
That's just one way that Cheng adapted the ancient custom—reflecting notions of beauty, femininity, and personal care—to her very 21st-century New York life.
According to traditional Chinese beliefs, hair is an extension of one's spirit and energy. The act of combing is more than just tidying one's appearance; it's a way of nurturing and harmonizing one's inner self. Each stroke helps distribute and balance this vital energy throughout the body, serving as a form of spiritual and physical cleansing. 'I joked this was my Mulan moment,' Cheng smiles, 'preparing for not battle but for a very important day.'
