Customs, culture and karsts call in Wulong

Not only were the bride and her family sobbing - so, too, were the audience members, who were moved when they watched the traditional "crying-wedding" performance in Beijing in late June.

The show portrays the local marital custom in Chongqing's Wulong district, where women bawl the night before their weddings because they're leaving their families to join their husbands'.

The "bride's mother" in the show reluctantly told her "daughter", who was clad in a red wedding gown, to show filial piety to her mother-in-law and that if she failed to live up to her responsibilities, she couldn't return home.