Wedding in Hue

NOTE: After almost 3 weeks busy with my new job, this weekend I have sometime for a little writing and reminiscent about my recent trip to Viet-Nam, especially the last leg of our trip, which is we went to Hue for a special reason. I hope you'll enjoy it as much as I did.

Jan. 18^th, 2010

We arrived at Hue under a cloudy and heavy rain. It rained from Da-Nang (where we booked our bus tickets from Sinh Tourist a day before we left Hoi-An) all the way to Hue and still last for several days after we arrived. Usually, each time wecome to Hue for a few reasons, this time I represented my dad, my side of family to attend some meetings with the bride's family, whom will be my brother's in-law afer he married a girl from this lovely ancient city. Come to think of it, the time that he met and proposed to this girl was almost the same length that when I met Kathy and later married her. In military, they have a term for it  "Thunderbolt Acquiring Target & Take Over", which was 'furiously" fast against our old Vietnamese's tradition and culture, only the Las Vegas's wedding speed can surpassing us! HAH!HAH!HAH!...

Anyway, before the BIG wedding day, Kathy, myself, our cousin and my brother went out to visit a famous place called "XQ Su-Quan", one of several Viet-Nam traditional hand embroidery exhibit centers (it also has similar centers in Ha-Noi, Da-Lat, Saigon, Hoi-AN, Nha-Trang and even in Texas, USA). 

Perhaps, it was my brother (seen in the picture above) quiet moment for himself, looking at the silk arts displayed and reflecting on what future ahead of him. For Kathy & I, we didn't have that "luxury" moment, but chaos and anxiety - because it was almost 35 years ago, on April 24th, 1975, I had to make a hard decision on whether I should stay in Viet-Nam or convince Kathy to go with me to a foreign country in order to escape the rule of Communist government. Lucky for me, Kathy has made a wise decision and the rest was history.

I guessed it was a good omen for
my brother's wedding, that Hue has been under wet weather for sometime, may be on and off for weeks before we arrived, but on his wedding day, as I walk out on the street and took a snapshot of the area near our hotel, I was surprised to see the sky was clear and the pavement was dry - as you can see the row of xich-lo waiting around a 5-stars hotel to pick up tourists for an morning sightseeing around town.  

 

Lou is my  youngest brother in our family, and between us is 11 years apart, and it made us even further apart when I was a teenager, Lou was just a toddler - so we didn't have a chance to get close and know each other, then as we migrated to USA and I was married, living in a different state thousand miles away,  we grew up  even farther and farther apart as years goes by.

Now, as I already spent almost 2 months in Viet-Nam and Lou end up working for a company here, we went out for lunch, dinner and taking short  trips together, talk to each other more than our past 20+ years combined. I came to know my brother and respected him more as I observed his business-like attitude when dealing with his potential employers and bosses. On his wedding day, Lou get up early and barking orders to the wedding planner and assistants - just like a real project manager - or perhaps, as if he is the wedding planner with lot of experiences, instructed the guests, the limousine drivers on which car to take, how to line-up before getting to the bride's house, whom to carry the ceremony's gift baskets, etc...

 

  Since the bride's root is from Hue, which heavily conservative and rich with traditions that mostly passed on from Royal and King families centuries ago, so of course the bride family wanted to keep the wedding ceremony as much traditional as possible. Thus, my brother got to hire a wedding planner from this province, to advice him the local custom and the required procedures.

as custom required, even the female and male from the groom family & friend, must gather separately outside...

... while waiting for the bride family welcome them into the house.

When  we getting to the bride's house, as the formal custom required, the groom party must wait outside - at least 20 yards - from the bride family house, until the head of household or representative of the bride family goes out and inviting us in. The inviting hour was consulted and determined in the Astrology calendar, to make sure it will be the "good" hour when they come out and invite us in.

Aren't they so cute, eh?

They're actually brother and sister from neighbor. The lantern symbol represents the light, the wisdom that will help guide newly wed couple for a long lasting happy married life together. Nowadays, It sure makes a lot of sense to me.

As the custom indicated, after a representative from the bride family came out and inviting us, this pair of lantern carrier led the groom party procession, line up in two columns and carrying the gift baskets to present it to the bride family, at the end of the wedding ceremony, it will be divided into 2 - one for each side of the families.

Here is Lou and his brand new wife :)

Just to make this story "short and sweet", after the introducing family members of both side, a normal burning candles and worship at the ancestor altar, the exchange vows between the couple, then a gift giving and well-wish event from the bride family & relatives to Lou and his new wife, then the party is ON... Of course, the same routines will repeat again at the groom family in Saigon later next week, but too bad that Kathy and I have to flight back to USA one day after we returned to Saigon tomorrow. Oh, I forgot to mentioned that later in the afternoon, both families invited relatives and friends to a famous restaurant name "Vy Da" for the wedding party, and I have to say that I was really impressed and respected Hue's people, who came not only on time, but graciously having fun, not a hint of typical rowdy guests often - happened during a Southern's wedding party - and the foods was excellent, just enough - not too much or wasted, and because the party was held on Thursday, thus many also graciously left early (around 9-10 PM) with a happy note, nobody grumpy or complain about the party was far too short either. Best of all, later on I heard people complimented me on my speech during the ceremony and a quite young looking over 50 'dude'...LOL  Final thought:    Well, just like that, my 2+ months vacation trip was gone in a flash - just like my previous 50+ years ago - where it all went? I know for sure that on our 20+ hours flight back to USA and weeks or months after that, I will have "plenty" of time to contemplate about what do I wanted to do for the rest of my life on this earth. I wasn't boring with working and making money, but for whom and why...and that my friend, it will be another long, long blogs in the future - LOL   Sam