2. Literature Review

     In recent years, many researchers have devoted themselves to the study of intercultural communication and made great achievements. In terms of marriage, people from different countries always hold different opinions. In fact, there is a considerable difference between Chinese and American culture in terms of marriage concept.

     The primary source material for this thesis includes Differences of Morality and Etiquettes between China and Western Countries from The Wedding Banquet, written by Yang Fengjuan; Study the different cultures between China and Western countries reflected from The Wedding Banquet, written by Shen Guorong; Cultural Identity Construction in the Differences between China and Western Cultures by Analyzing Pushing Hands and The Wedding Banquet, written by Lu Lei. The Conflicts and Reconciliations between Chinese and Western Cultures in Ang Lee’s movies, taking “ The Wedding Banquet” as an example, written by Zhang Mengya. And several other relative thesiss. The work of Yang Fengjuan is central to social morality and etiquettes. It states the development of Chinese and Western morality from ancient times to the present and points their differences from The Wedding Banquet. The work of Shen Guorong is focus on cultural differences which involve many aspects such as marriage, family concepts. Lu Lei’s paper covers four parts of differences between China and Western countries, including diet, marriage, family and sexual orientation. And Zhang Mengya’s thesis emphasizes the features of Ang Lee’s movies and talks conflicts and reconciliation between Chinese and Western cultures from a general point of view.源'自:吹冰`!论~文'网www.chuibin.com

     By studying their papers, I get a deeper understanding of the wedding banquet. But at the same time, I find few of them took a deep research on marriage concepts, which are definitely worthwhile for us to know. Therefore the purpose of this paper is to study different marriage concepts between China and America.

3. Brief Introduction of The Wedding Banquet

     The wedding banquet was directed by Ang Lee, which was well known for its cultural conflicts between China and America in marriage concepts. Gao Weitong, a Chinese man living in the United States, was thirty-three years old and unmarried. He was a gay and had a homosexual lover named Simon. But Gao was always worrying about his own marriage as his parents were eager to see him get married and have a child in order to continue the family line.

     Gao had a house which was rent to a Chinese girl, Weiwei who was a penniless artist from mainland China and in need of a green card or would be expelled from the United States soon. In this case, Gao’s lover Simon suggested him pretending to get married with Weiwei. They thought it can not only please Gao’s parents but also help Weiwei to stay there.

     Hearing the marriage news, Gao’s parents flied to America immediately. However, Gao and Weiwei just had a courthouse wedding ceremony to get a marriage certificate, which made Gao’s parents greatly disappointed. So then they had no choice but to hold a magnificent Chinese wedding banquet for compensation. After the banquet, Weiwei forced herself on Gao and became pregnant. As soon as knowing this news, Simon felt very upset and could not help quarreling with Gao in English. After serious consideration, Gao decided to tell the truth to his mother . Although his mum was greatly shocked, she forgave him finally but avoided telling her husband the truth. It was not until one day when Gao’s father said “happy birthday” to Simon in English that they realized he had already known everything. Just because his conversational concept and for sake of his grandchild , he pretended to know nothing. After making an appointment to an abortion, Weiwei decided to keep the baby and asked Simon to stay together with Weitong and be the baby’s other father.