空着手来女儿的及笄礼
“would be humiliating.”
THE DIALOGUE REEL
总不好
“arriving empty-handed”
空着手 来女儿的 及笄礼
“would be humiliating.”
你纪家好排场
“The Ji name carries weight.”
“I cannot show up empty-handed without looking terrible and losing face.”
Attending significant life ceremonies without gifts is considered a grave breach of etiquette that causes loss of face for both guest and host.
LEARNING CHUNKS & PARTICLES
empty-handed
Used to describe arriving at an event, gathering, or someone's home without bearing gifts or essentials.
hair-pinning ceremony; coming-of-age ceremony for young women
A specific historical term for the traditional Chinese rite of passage when a girl turns fifteen.
VOCABULARY & EXPRESSIONS
Parallel Spoken Cinema Scenes (语义近邻切片)
“Her coming-of-age ceremony should also be decent, shouldn't it?”
“Without it,”
“If the ceremony falls apart, my name suffers a little, nothing new.”
“than the grandest ceremony imaginable!”
“But the ceremony will go forward.”
“Why hold a ceremony at all?”