I just had a casual discussion with my parents about specific Chinese terms and how they interpreted the terms, at least from their own generation.

訂婚 = when you do this, you get married (結婚), whatever that means--is this the day where you get the marriage certificate or the day that you celebrate the event with your family?

I feel like this term has often been translated for the western concept of 'engagement' which usually means you plan for a wedding day, and the day the wedding is solemnized by a religious leader or government official is the day of marriage. When westerners get the marriage certificate... I have no idea. I have never gotten married before, lol, so I can't say either way.

Dad also tells me that the boundary between 男朋友，女朋友 and 未婚夫，未婚妻 is not very clear. I think westerners would make a very strong distinction between boyfriend/girlfriend status and fiancé/fiancée status. The boyfriend/girlfriend status is when the boy and girl date and have fun, no ring. The fiancé/fiancée status is when the boy and girl get serious, engagement ring. From what I've heard and read thus far, I think the ring practice is derived from the Romans or the Egyptians?

Though, with Chinese people nowadays more and more exposed to the rest of the world, studying and living in western nations and moving back to China, maybe some Chinese people have borrowed the ring custom? *shrug*

Some years ago, I did some research online on US marriages / western marriages, just trying to see how people got married. And the general assumption is that wedding couple is affiliated with some kind of church, or if not, their wedding must be solemnized by a government official or some kind of wedding officiant.

Anybody here with experiences in Chinese-American marriages?

You could be:

• a Chinese couple who got married in the USA
• an ethnic Chinese couple in the second or subsequent generation or Chinese-East Asian couple
• an ethnic Chinese / non-East Asian couple

Yeah, I know a lot of Chinese Americans are affiliated with churches, and the church leader can probably opt in as a wedding officiant, making the wedding process simpler, I presume.

But I would like to know about the experiences of people who are just not affiliated with Christianity.