Here Come the Brides!

published 4 September 2007

'Tis the season to tie the knot. In China, the more the merrier.

In the city of Sanya, on the southern tip of Hainan Island, hundreds of couples participated in the 11th annual Tianyahaijiao International Wedding Festival, flocking to the country's most beautiful beach for a piggyback "race" to reaffirm their love. (It is also one of many promotional events leading up to the Beijing Olympics in 2008.) Tianyahaijiao, the name of the beach, is also a proverb meaning "To the end of the earth and corner of the sea." The American equivalent? "Till death do us part."