Việt Nam started enjoying full peace in late 1980's. Peace and the economic renewal since 1986 has brought widespread changes. Vietnamese began to practice many traditional customs they had abandoned during the war years and often did so with surprising innovations. Families prepared traditional foods and restored old shrines; they revived old customs and modified them to accommodate a modernising society. This process included restoration of sophisticated traditional marriage rites and adoption of Western rituals.
These days, an ordinary wedding in Hà Nội calls for three ceremonies: chạm ngõ (gate touching),ấn hỏi (engagement), and lề cưới (wedding rite). Each step is costly, requiring that the couple hire a photographer and cars or cyclos. However, the greatest expense is the celebratory meal. A restaurant banquet is expensive, with a table for six guests costing VND 400,000 ($us 25) and the number of invitees perhaps reaching several hundred. Some weddings last two days. On average, a modern Vietnamese wedding costs about VND 20 million (equivalent to us$ 1,250) for food and drinks.
The couple's parents decide how much to spend. In rural areas, a family will often prepare in advance by fattening a hog and raising extra chickens. Still, an average mid-level State employee earns only around VND 700,000 (US$ 44) a month or VND 8,400,000 (US$ 525) annually. Such workers must save several years for a child's wedding. Some poor families borrow from their relatives or friends. Lower incomes in the countryside force some families into debt for years, with excessive cost victimising the couple and their families. Guests also become hostages to modern weddings since they are expected to give the hosting couple a substantial sum as a wedding present.
The keynote of a Vietnamese wedding is a banquet at a major restaurant or luxury hotel after the solemn bride-welcoming ceremony in front of the ancestral altar in the groom's home. The banquet introduces the bride and the groom to the relatives and friends of both extended families. Wedding banquets are often quite predictable: The master of ceremonies says a few words, and then the guests eat quickly and present their envelopes (usually containing VND 100,000 or us$ 6.25) as a wedding gift.
Mrs. Nguyễn Thị Ngọc Mỹ, a wedding guest, recently summarised the feelings of many: "Attending a wedding like this is boring and costly," she said. "I eat the food, offer my envelope with money to the parents of the bride, whom I know well, and then leave after wishing the newly- married couple happiness. That's all."
A hundred weddings may occur on any given day during the nuptial season. This represents big business for hotels and restaurants.
Mr. Nguyễn Văn Nhuần, who is over seventy, is a former public servant. "As a pensioner," he said, "I worry when wedding season comes around. A close friend, who is also a retired State employee, invited me to his daughter's wedding. I had to set aside a hundred thousand Vietnamese lương hưu (US$ 6.50) — one-third of my monthly pension — for the wedding present. If I'm invited to three weddings in a month, I have no money left for food!"
A tired bride at another wedding described her plight: "We've arranged sixty tables for 360 guests. It was so expensive that we had to borrow a large amount of money. That's the current custom. But is that sufficient reason for all this expense?"
Few families are bold enough to counter current practice. Today, weddings have become so extravagant that the prime minister issued a special directive suggesting a simple, wholesome, and economical style.
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