Making the Groom's Family Pay
During feudal times, people accepted the custom of thách cưới, whereby the groom's family paid the bride's family. This practice led to many a poor young man in love abandoning his dream of happiness because he could not afford costly gifts for the family of his intended. Of course, sometimes the woman suffered the most.
Even in feudal times, some progressive voices rose up against this custom. "Marriage," some people said, "should not weigh profit and loss."
Sometimes, however, thách cưới was not such a terrible custom. In one case, it enabled a father to save his daughter from an unfortunate marriage.
The father was Phan Điện from Đức Thọ, Hà Tĩnh Province in central Viet Nam. Phan Điện had a very beautiful daughter who caught the eye of Hoàng Mạnh Trí, who had been born in the same year and in the same province as Phan Điện. However, Hoàng Mạnh Trí was the son of Hoàng Cao Khải, the governor of Nam Định Province. Mạnh Trí decided that he wanted Phan Điện's daughter as his concubine. He sent his servant to seek Phan Điện's agreement.
This delicate matter required that Phan Điện carefully consider his reply. After some thought, he said to the servant: "It is a great honour for my daughter to be at the service of your master. What more could my family want?"
The servant reported Điện's words to his master. Mạnh Trí was overjoyed. The next day, he sent his servant to Phan Điện again to convey his thanks and broach the question of wedding gifts.
"Please let my master know how much money and how many gifts you request," the servant said.
"How grateful I am that your master will accept my daughter," Phan Điện replied. "I request from your master only that he bow down twice. Only two bows."
Mạnh Trí knew that when a man married a woman, he must address her father as "Father" and bow to him. This would mean that Mạnh Trí, a senior mandarin, must bow before a poor, ordinary man his own age. That would be too embarrassing!
And so, rather than bow twice, Mạnh Trí relinquished his desired concubine. As for the local people, they admired Phan Điện's wisdom and sneered at Senior Mandarin Mạnh Trí.
A Wedding in the Thick of the Forest
An account by cultural writer Hữu Ngọc.
I still remember a special wedding in the forest — my own, in 1952. The War of Resistance Against France had begun late in 1946. In 1952, the French colonial authorities occupied almost all urban centres, while Ho Chi Minh's revolutionary government controlled the country's mountainous and rural regions. The Vietnamese victory at Dien Bien Phu was still to come.
My wife and I were both in the People's Army and stationed in a remote bamboo forest of Thai Nguyen Province. Our unit was based in the Viet Bac Mountains, the rampart of the 1945 August Revolution and the backbone of the nine-year Resistance War. Our living conditions were extremely hard, and malaria tormented us. All year round, we lived on mouldy red rice and bamboo shoots. If we were lucky, each month we had a piece of stewed pork. As for chicken, the situation was even worse: We enjoyed that delicacy twice a year at most. Salt was scarce because we were in the mountains far from the sea coast, and the enemy had encircled us. We burned small bamboo sticks and used the ash as a salt substitute.
Of course, under such circumstances, our wedding could only be a simple event, yet it was filled with affection. At that time, the People's Army was a paramilitary organisation that did not distinguish between officers and men. Our unit organised the wedding on behalf of our two families. One squad felled bamboo to build us a small but on a hillside above a brook. They made a ceiling from a parachute the enemy had dropped nearby. They completed the but in two days and then built a few pieces of rudimentary furniture.
Two weddings ours and that of two friends took place in the evening with our unit commander serving as the master of ceremonies. He stood in front of the battalion, congratulated us on our special event, and wished us happiness, concluding, "Enjoy your happiness, but don't forget your obligations!"
After that, we, together with the other couple, expressed our thanks to the organisers and promised that we would work harder to make a contribution to the nation's victory. Then some of the unit performed patriotic songs. The wedding guests shared our joy by drinking tea and nibbling sweets and forest fruits. Simple as that evening was, I will never forget it.
On the 'Roof ' of Viet Nam
An account by Bùi Cẩm Ly
A young man and woman tested their love by holding their wedding on Mount Phan Xi Păng (Fan Si Pan), as this description illustrates:
We first visited Sa Pa in 1995 and heard about a Japanese couple who had climbed Mount Phan Xi Păng together to show their enduring love. Both husband and wife were seventy-two years old. That story gave us the idea of holding our wedding on the summit of Viet nam's highest mountain. Needless to say, our friends were surprised!
We set off early on 1 December 1996. Our expedition consisted of ourselves as the bride and groom plus six guides and porters. As we climbed higher and higher into the mountains, the scenery — walls of sheer rock, green forests, and clear streams — became wilder and more beautiful. It was like walking through a fairyland.
Yet we also ran into difficulties. The higher we climbed, the harder it was to cook because the low air pressure caused water to boil at 70° C. Walking became more tiring. The slopes were steep. Slippery moss caused us to lose our footing. Even a minor injury such as a sprained ankle would make it difficult to continue.
The leeches were the biggest nuisance. They hid in bushes, waiting to drop onto passing warm-blooded creatures and did not discriminate between wild animals and humans. Even as adventurers and newlyweds-in-waiting, we were not immune to their bloodthirsty advances. Luckily, the leeches became rarer the higher we climbed and the colder it grew.
The average mid-day temperature of 12°C on Mount Phan Xi Păng drops to 2°C after dark. At night, it was bitterly cold with high winds and heavy rain. We spent two nights in Deadly Valley, a narrow gap between high mountain walls. The weather those two nights was terrible.
At 12:30 P.M. on 3 December, we spotted the shiny platinum block that marks the peak of Mount Phan Xi Păng and cried tears of relief and triumph after our tortuous journey. We had climbed peaks of 1,900 metres, 2,650 metres, and 2,900 metres, walking steadily. We'd made it!
Now, we were 3,144 metres above sea level, but we felt even higher. The climb had been a test, not just of our physical and mental strength, but of our love for each other. We felt our love could overcome any challenge placed in its path.
Just one thing, though: Please, no more leeches!
Underwater
An account by Nguyễn Hiền
For the first time in Viet Nam, the Green Cultural Tourism Company of Ho Chi Minh City and the Blue Diving Club of Nha Trang City held two underwater weddings on 4 April 2001. Mrs. Minh Thu, director of Nha Trang's Blue Diving Club, accompanied the wedding parties.
At 10:45 A.M., two couples — Mr. Thanh Trúc and Ms. Bích Vân, and Mr. Hiền Trung and Ms. Trâm Anh — donned diving outfits and 30-kg. oxygen tanks. The brides wore wreaths on their heads as they dove down five metres into the sea off Mun Island, Nha Trang. Their weddings beside coral reefs did have witnesses: sea plants waving in the deep-water currents and many species of colourful, curious fish.