Number Four: A Vietnamese Wedding Singer

I'm back again with another thing done/learned/seen here in Vietnam-- enjoy!

4. Singing my repertoire of… 1 Vietnamese song at 10 or so weddings around Thanh Hoa:

The arrival of mid-November marked the beginning of wedding season in Vietnam- a truly spectacular time. Unlike in the United States when a wedding date is chosen based upon convenience or the fact that Sewanee just looks gorgeous in the summer and early fall, most Vietnamese couples turn to fortune tellers to find out if, and when they should get married—down to the time of day when the man should leave his home to begin the caravan to his wife’s home to pick her up and bring her to his house to officially seal the union. Due in large part to the cooler weather that prevails in the winter months, but most primarily to the fact that it is often deemed auspicious for couples to be married just before the end of the lunar year, November, December, January, and February are often full of Vietnamese weddings and all that those events entail.
Although I have spent lots of time talking to students and friends here about the wedding process and seen plenty of weddings myself, I still don’t funny understand all that happens for wedding celebrations here, but I’ll do my best to talk briefly about what I do know. First of all, it is ideal for the man to be two years older than his wife and the truly preferable marriage ages are 26 for the woman and 28 for the man, as getting married when your age is an odd number is not very lucky, but does certainly happen. Once all of the formalities of being the right age and deciding to get married and then settling on a date with the fortune teller are out of the way, the preparations for the big event begins.
I am always particularly amused at the wedding photos that are taken in Vietnam in preparation for a wedding. Wedding photos take about 6 hours to orchestrate and involve the future bride and groom posing around various lakes, bridges, and tea sets and wearing sometimes up to 8 different outfits. The bride wears her wedding gown in many of the pictures, so the Western tradition of keeping the wedding gown a secret until the big day is not followed. Traditional wedding attire in Vietnam was red, as the color red (still a predominant color at wedding festivities) is a lucky color. In contemporary times, however, many Vietnamese brides have chosen to wear a Western-style gown instead of their traditional dress. These gowns, however, usually involve a lot more “poof” than is the style in the States today, and many of the dresses happen to be accented with some bright neon color—they are a thing to behold. But I digress… back to the photos. Once these photos have been taken, they are touched up and airbrushed to the point that the bride and groom are sometimes unrecognizable compared to their real selves and then blown up to life-sized or larger pictures to be hung in the wedding tents that are set up in the days leading up to the wedding itself. Oftentimes, families keep these wedding banners (complete with the bride and groom’s names and a few of the pictures of the bride and groom looking longingly into one another’s eyes) hanging on the sides of their shops facing the street for weeks and months after the wedding has taken place.
I mentioned wedding tents earlier, so I’ll talk about those now. Typically, the culminating wedding celebration itself takes place at the husband’s family’s home and a tent extending from the home or shop entrance (many Vietnamese families live in the backs or on the 2nd floors of their shops) where tables, flowers, tea sets, and massive speakers are set up. A few days before the wedding these speakers are turned on, and earsplitting techno music is blasted from them almost around the clock until a day or two after the wedding takes place. I have attempted to sleep in a hotel near one of these wedding tents and it is almost impossible—even when the tent is completely and totally empty the music blasts on, telling the world (or at least a 400 meter range) that someone is getting married. The tricky part about these speakers is that they make it almost impossible to carry on a conversation with anyone around you once you are inside of them and trying to figure out what is happening with the bride and the groom at that time (the music—techno Vietnamese music with the occasional techno English song thrown in-- continues throughout the entire ceremony, only quieting during the lunch that is served afterward.)
On the day of the wedding itself, the groom and his family travel by caravan to his wife’s hometown or, if they both happen to live in the city, home, bringing with them gifts for his wife’s family. These gifts, including betel leaves, fruit, cigarettes, wine, tea, cakes, etc. are carried on trays covered in red cloth by 5 or 7 (it must be an odd number) unmarried young men and presented to the wife’s family. Then, the groom and his family enter the bride’s home and toast to the wedding with rice wine while also officially asking for final permission for the wedding to take place. When this is granted, the bride and groom are (after usually being showered with confetti) taken to the groom’s home where the family and friends invited to attend the wedding are crowded into the tents, tapping their feet to techno music and drinking green tea while waiting for them to come. Once the bride and groom arrive at the wedding, they take their place at the head table and the emcee for the event steps out and essentially commences what I like to call the “open mic” portion of the wedding in which friends and family are invited to sing a song for the couple. (Yes, this is where I come in, but I’ll get to that in a minute.) After a series of very loud and mostly off-key songs are sung, the mother of the groom comes forward and places a necklace on the bride and the bride and groom exchange rings to great applause. Then, the crowd usually chants “kiss her!” in Vietnamese and at every wedding I’ve been to, the bride always acts very coy and usually refuses to allow the groom to kiss her in public, to the great amusement of the friends and family there. Then, the confetti that has been stored at the top of the tent is dropped all over the bride, groom, and guests, and the ceremony itself is over. The bride and groom leave briefly so that the bride can change into an ao dai to greet her guests and the tables are quickly converted from tea and candy tables to lunch tables, as the groom’s family cooks a large meal to celebrate the event. Lots of eating, drinking, and toasting accompany the lunch that follows and after the food and rice wine is gone, people head on their ways, giving the bride and groom an envelope of money for a gift (rather than giving house ware or other gifts traditionally given in the States, people give money here in Vietnam.)
As I said earlier, I’ve had the chance to attend roughly 10 or so weddings during my time in Thanh Hoa and I have been amazed and amused at each and every one. Probably one of my favorite weddings was that of two of my students. These students met on the first day of my class in September and, as they told me later, fell in love at first sight. After a few weeks of watching their relationship, I took to calling them “The Lovers” in a reference to Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream and tried to counsel them away from referring to one another as “my darling” or “my lover” while in the classroom for reasons of propriety and the fact that the other students were practically falling backwards in their chairs from rolling their eyes so far back in their heads at such remarks. I just about fell backwards, however, when they told me excitedly that they had decided to get married and that they hoped I could come to their wedding in December. I told them that I would, of course, be there, and I, along with our entire class was sitting nearest the head table on their big day, grinning from ear to ear.
I had been asked, casually, on the way over to their wedding whether or not I would be willing to sing a Vietnamese song at the wedding, and I said that I would think about it…when the time came for the “open mic” portion of the wedding, however, I suddenly heard my name being called out and my class went crazy and told me that I was singing the Vietnamese love song duet that I had sung for them before. This song, “Lời Của Gió” means “Whisper of the Wind” and is an extremely popular love song that I first sang at a Teacher’s Day celebration in November. I said goodbye to my pride, stood up, took the microphone, and belted out my best version of the song to wild laughter, massive cheers, and great applause…. And so began my stint as a Vietnamese wedding singer for the duration of the wedding season. Quite a few of the students from the IEC got married during this time, and as a teacher at the university, I was invited to all of their weddings. Once word got around that I knew a Vietnamese song, I was asked by all of the brides and grooms to be to sing Lời Của Gió because it was certain to bring good luck to the marriage if I did. Not wanting to prevent any luck from being bestowed upon a young couple, I always agreed, and even began saying something like “I’m so happy to be able to come to this wedding for my two friends. I wish you the best of luck and much happiness” in Vietnamese to begin my song. The family and friends at the wedding always found my singing to be hilarious, and I knew to expect all of the various mothers present at the wedding to come and sit with me after I was finished, pouring me tea, feeding me mini oranges and rice and chatting with me happily. Usually the conversation would involve me telling them that I was an English teacher… 22 years old… from America… oldest child of 3… loved Vietnam… and then came the inevitable question: “Em lấy chồng chưa?” (Are you married yet?)
Me: “Chưa, nhưng em có người yêu sống ở nước
Mỹ (no, not yet, but I have a boyfriend who lives in the United States)
The Mother: Ối Giời Ơi, em muốn người yêu Việt không? (Oh my goodness! Don’t you want a Vietnamese boyfriend?!”
Me: Không, cảm ơn cô, em chỉ cần một người yêu! (No, thank you ma’am, but I only need one boyfriend!)

All of this would end in lots of laughter from the women, and after stroking my hair they would leave and I would be free to be teased by my students.

I must admit that by the end of my wedding tour, I was a little tired of singing the same song over and over again, and I always felt a little weird at the fact that I, just by nature of being the foreigner, was always brought forth to bestow “luck” on the new couple, but I tried not to let such thoughts bother me too much… it got in the way of my singing range!

Wedding season is over now, and while there are still some weddings taking place, the volume of weddings is down significantly. It is weird to think that I will already be long gone by the time the next season rolls around, but I know that come next December, I’ll be thinking about the tents, confetti, techno music, and joy seen at such events while I hum Lời Của Gió to myself.

Another post soon to follow.

Love,

Hayley