Qungua

Back in Ming dynasty, the women wedding dress worn by nobles and commoners was known as fengguan xiapei (traditional Chinese: 鳳冠霞帔; simplified Chinese: 凤冠霞帔) composed of the fengguan and xiapei.^[3] The wedding dress worn in Ming dynasty continued to influence the wedding dress of the later centuries.^[3]

What is known as qungua only started to be worn in the 18th century during the Qing dynasty.^[1] The qungua originated in Guangdong when Liang Zhu, a Guangdong Qing dynasty politician, was rewarded with a silk wedding dress embroidered with dragons and phoenixes by the Qing Emperor at the time of his daughter's wedding.^[7] This led to the use qungua in the Guangdong area.^[7]

In 18th century, Chinese mothers would start to sew the qungua as soon as a daughter was born in the family.^[1] The qungua would then be placed as a part of the daughter's bride dowry when she gets married.^[1] The qungua follows the ancient traditional system of shangyi xiachang (Chinese: 上衣下裳; upper and lower garment).^[3]

The qungua is composed of two separate garments: a gua (Chinese: 褂; pinyin: guà; Jyutping: gwaa3; lit. 'coat'), which is a Chinese jacket which closes at the front with buttons,^[4] and a qun (Chinese: 裙; pinyin: qún; Jyutping: kwan4; lit. 'skirt').^[2] The qun worn in the qungua is typically straight in cut.^[2] The skirt could be pleated.^[8]

While Western wedding dress tends to be white in colour, Chinese traditional wedding clothing favours the use of red and gold colour.^[1]

The gua was originally black in colour while the skirt was originally red in colour.^[5]

The gua which is completely red in colour only appeared in the 1960s.^[5] Since then the traditional black gua and red qun started to be used for the bride's mother instead of being worn by the brides themselves.^[5][3]

• 
  Bride wearing Qing dynasty qungua.
• 
  Qungua (left) worn by Chinese brides, 1900s.
• 
  Qungua is a two-piece garment attire: black gua and red qun.
• 
  Long skirt qun
• 
  Red gua
• 
  Construction of a black gua jacket.
• 
  Black gua

The qungua is typically embroidered with the Chinese dragons called long (traditional Chinese: 龍; simplified Chinese: 龙) and the Chinese phoenix called feng (traditional Chinese: 鳳; simplified Chinese: 凤).^[3] It can also be decorated with other auspicious symbols, such as pomegranate (symbolism for fertility), peony flowers, lotus flowers, bats, goldfish, butterfly and birds.^[5]

Nowadays, there are 5 different types of qungua which is named accordingly to the percentage of embroidery covering the dress:^[1]

1. Xiaowufu (小五福): 30% covered with embroidery,
2. Zhongwufu (中五福): 50% covered with embroidery
3. Dawufu (大五福): 70% covered with embroidery
4. Guahou (褂后): 90% covered with embroidery
5. Guahuang (褂皇): 100% covered with embroidery

The Betawi bridal dress, partly influenced by Chinese culture and by Indonesian culture, looks similar to the Chinese qungua.^[7] Like the qungua, the Betawi bridal dress is a two-piece set of attire which composed of an ankle-length with wider bottom skirt called kun and an upper garment called tuaki.^[7] The tuaki is decorated with Chinese auspicious symbols.^[7] One difference from the qungua is the use of Betawi Lotus, also known as Betawi pomegranate, a separate ornamental garment which covers the chest and shoulder areas (similar to the yunjian of the Chinese people).^[7] The Betawi lotus was used to denote the origins of the Betawi bride, but it was eventually replaced by beads which typically follows the Spanish cherry floral pattern.^[7] The kun and tuaki must match in colour.^[7]

• 
  Chinese Bride in Batavia in her wedding dress, 1870. The dress is heavily influenced by Chinese culture but also shows subtle differences.
• 
  Betawi bride and groom, 2008.