Guilin Tourism Fashion Life - Accepting sweet potatoes as a proposal to marry out of the house

The folk customs of ethnic minorities have become a major feature of Guilin's folk custom tourism, allowing you to experience the colorful folk customs of Guilin while enjoying the most beautiful scenery in the world. The way young men and women of the Yao nationality choose their partners is mostly free love, singing for affection. When they sing harmoniously, they exchange tokens and settle the marriage. Then, either the man's or woman's family will ask the uncle and aunt for help in proposing marriage. This is just a formal procedure of "no matchmaker, no marriage". However, in some Yao villages in Yongfu County of Northern Guangxi, there are also cases where parents or uncles and aunts like a man and propose marriage to their daughter.

This kind of proposal that seeks the daughter's opinion respects her wishes in a unique and interesting way. That is, the parents roast a foot-shaped sweet potato (a kind of wild sweet potato in the mountains), wrap it with banana leaves, and pass it to their daughter by the fireplace, saying: "The banana leaves are big and green, and the wrapped foot-shaped sweet potato is fragrant and powdery. These two things are easy to plant, and can sprout and take root in any mountain stream ditch. Today, eat this foot-shaped sweet potato, you have a place to stay, and your father and mother will be one hundred and twenty percent assured!"

After hearing these words, the daughter naturally understands her parents' meaning. If she agrees, she will take the foot-shaped sweet potato with both hands, immediately open the banana leaf, and eat the sweet potato. This shows that the daughter happily accepts the marriage arranged by her parents. If the daughter slowly takes the foot-shaped sweet potato without eating it and puts it in the bowl cabinet, it means that the daughter needs to consider the marriage proposed by her parents. If she ignores it or doesn't even take it, it indicates that the daughter completely disagrees with the marriage proposed by her parents and refuses it.