IN: Arabic weddings (Arabic: zff, frH, or `rs) have changed greatly in the past 100 years. Original traditional Arabic weddings are supposed to be very similar to modern-day Bedouin weddings and rural weddings, and they are in some cases unique from one region to another, even within the same country. it must be mentioned that what some people today call "Bedouin" wedding is in fact the original true traditional Arab Islamic wedding without foreign influence. The marriage process usually starts with meetings between the couple's families, and ends with the wedding's consummation (leilat al-dokhla).

Arranged marriages still happen in the Arab world. The traditions of conservative Arab society and Islam forbid couples to have sex or socialize before marriage (however forced marriages are against Islamic teachings). Therefore, when it is time for a young man to get married, his family will look around to identify a number of potential brides.  Arranged marriage is a tradition of Arab nations of West Asia and North Africa, but with the difference that between 17% to majority of all marriages in these countries are also consanguineous marriages. In Saudi Arabia, majority (65%+) of all marriages are endogamous and consanguineous arranged marriages. More than 40% of all marriages are endogamous and consanguineous in Iraq, Jordan, Syria, Yemen, Kuwait, UAE, Oman, Sudan, Libya and Mauritania; and over 1 in 5 marriages in Egypt and Algeria. Among these Arab people, arranged marriages include endogamous and non-consanguineous marriages, and therefore exceed the above observed rates of endogamous and consanguineous marriages. Arab Christians such as Coptic Christians in Egypt. Marriage was a central feature of traditional Aboriginal societies. Freedom of marriage was restricted to ensure children were produced according to the correct family groups and affiliations and avoid marriages with certain close relatives or marriages with any one outside the group. Nevertheless, opinions vary on whether the phenomenon should be seen as exclusively based on Islamic practices as a 1992 study among Arabs in Jordan did not show significant differences between Christian Arabs or Muslim Arabs when comparing the occurrence of consanguinity.  Traditionally, the process of investigation takes into consideration the girls' physical beauty, her behavior, her cleanliness, her education and finally her qualities as a housewife. In carrying out this traditional investigation parents also take the behaviour of the prospective bride's family into account.  The first meeting usually takes place between the bride, groom, and their respective mothers. They meet, usually in a public place or in the bride's house, and get to know each other. The bride, groom, and their chaperones will typically sit separately, but within sight of each other, in order to get to know each other. Nowadays, the man might suggest to his family who he would like them to consider, and it may be that the man and the woman already know each other. It is also nowadays common in urban families for a bride and the groom to agree to marry before the groom approaches the bride's family for their permission.
QUESTION: Any other countries?
IN: Shen Kuo (Chinese: Chen Gua ; 1031-1095), courtesy name Cunzhong (Cun Zhong ) and pseudonym Mengqi (now usually given as Mengxi) Weng (Meng Xi Weng ), was a Han Chinese polymathic scientist and statesman of the Song dynasty (960-1279). Excelling in many fields of study and statecraft, he was a mathematician, astronomer, meteorologist, geologist, zoologist, botanist, pharmacologist, agronomist, archaeologist, ethnographer, cartographer, encyclopedist, general, diplomat, hydraulic engineer, inventor, academy chancellor, finance minister, governmental state inspector, poet, and musician.

Shen Kuo was born in Qiantang (modern-day Hangzhou) in the year 1031. His father Shen Zhou (Chen Zhou ; 978-1052) was a somewhat lower-class gentry figure serving in official posts on the provincial level; his mother was from a family of equal status in Suzhou, with her maiden name being Xu (Xu ). Shen Kuo received his initial childhood education from his mother, which was a common practice in China during this period. She was very educated herself, teaching Kuo and his brother Pi (Pi ) the military doctrines of her own elder brother Xu Tang (Xu Dong ; 975-1016). Since Shen was unable to boast of a prominent familial clan history like many of his elite peers born in the north, he was forced to rely on his wit and stern determination to achieve in his studies, subsequently passing the imperial examinations and enter the challenging and sophisticated life of an exam-drafted state bureaucrat.  From about 1040 AD, Shen's family moved around Sichuan province and finally to the international seaport at Xiamen, where Shen's father accepted minor provincial posts in each new location. Shen Zhou also served several years in the prestigious capital judiciary, the equivalent of a federal supreme court. Shen Kuo took notice of the various towns and rural features of China as his family traveled, while he became interested during his youth in the diverse topography of the land. He also observed the intriguing aspects of his father's engagement in administrative governance and the managerial problems involved; these experiences had a deep impact on him as he later became a government official. Since he often became ill as a child, Shen Kuo also developed a natural curiosity about medicine and pharmaceutics.  Shen Zhou died in the late winter of 1051 (or early 1052), when his son Shen Kuo was 21 years old. Shen Kuo grieved for his father, and following Confucian ethics, remained inactive in a state of mourning for three years until 1054 (or early 1055). As of 1054, Shen began serving in minor local governmental posts. However, his natural abilities to plan, organize, and design were proven early in life; one example is his design and supervision of the hydraulic drainage of an embankment system, which converted some one hundred thousand acres (400 km2) of swampland into prime farmland. Shen Kuo noted that the success of the silt fertilization method relied upon the effective operation of sluice gates of irrigation canals.
QUESTION:
Where was he born?