Wednesday morning Huyen called to invite me to her brother's wedding. Short notice is pretty normal (the wedding was Thursday*) but she had told me before Christmas that he was getting married soon after the New Year. Fortunately, I've not started up with the second semester yet, so I went downtown, bought a card and went to bed early.
The ride up was sunny but cold. Since the family is well-connected in the steel business, the house was pretty crowded. The first face I recognized was Huyen's little cousin (who is not so little any more!) She greeted me with an enthusiastic, "Hi, David!" quickly followed by, "Where's Nancy?" She was Nancy's cultural guide in the fish-eye story and they've spent quite a bit of time together over the years.
This was the most elaborate Vietnamese wedding I've been to so far. Live traditional folk music, tea tables separate from the banquet tables, an improvised kitchen 3 times the size of my classrooms...
The customs, of course, were the same. Guests visit and eat as the groom and his family move from table to table to greet them. At the appointed time, the groom goes off with some of the older members of his family and a few close friends to get the bride and bring her back to his house. Then they go inside and the families have a short ceremony at the ancestral altar. More and more couples are doing the western wedding cake bit afterwards and these guys had a huge cake.
Weddings aren’t my favorite event because, the longer they last, the drunker some of the guests get. Then, one after another, they come by your table wanting to drink with you. The organization I work for has a no drinking policy, and I don’t drink anyway, so it’s always a pain. Even sipping doesn’t count – “Mot tram phan tram” is the standard ( “One hundred percent!”).
Still, this wedding was one I didn’t want to miss. And it was fun, for the most part. I was able to slip away to a quieter place in the house and chat with some uncles, cousins and grandkids before going in to the banquet. I'm so grateful for the chance to have learned some Vietnamese last year so I can talk with people now! It was a good chance to see some of my old students, friends, and to continue to cultivate small seeds among those who are still far from the master gardener.
* Two VTF teachers were invited to go to
Ha Long Bay today; the invitation came
at midnight last night.
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