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Offering prayers

Michelle & Vinh

Getting Married: Michelle Nguyen and Vinh Luc married in 2002 with traditional Buddhist prayers and celebrations. Their wedding rituals and feast, celebrating the couple's Vietnamese and Chinese heritage, took almost the whole of one spring Saturday. The day was long but joyous, a celebration of their commitment to each other within their families and wider community.

Marrying in the Buddhist tradition

One Saturday morning
It is very early on a Saturday morning in Spring 2002. Suddenly the quiet suburban Saturday morning is broken by the deafening, cheeky sound of strings of firecrackers going off. Michelle Nguyen and Vinh Luc are to be married, and the crackers announce the start of a day of rituals and festivities to celebrate their marriage.

People crowd into the front garden of the Nguyen's home in Canley Vale. Everyone is dressed up and a number of the young women, Michelle's bridesmaids, wear ao dai, the traditional Vietnamese ‘long dress'. The ao dai are intricately handpainted in pastel shades, and from a distance the girls look like a moving painting.

The noise of the crackers continues for the next five minutes. Children scream and jump with excitement and the bridesmaids grin and clamp their hands over their ears while they wait for the groom to arrive at Michelle's parents' house.

The groom arrives
As traditional in Chinese weddings, Vinh and his entourage of uncles and relatives arrive and organise themselves into a line. The men are all in dress suits and carry qua, large round red trays loaded with gifts of fruit, wine, tea and jewellery for the bride and her family. The gifts are symbolic of what the groom can offer the bride. The trays are covered with red satin, which is embroidered with dragon and phoenix figures and Chinese characters.

“Gifts of food wine and jewellery are brought for the bride and her family. The dragon and phoenix represent the bride and groom and the Chinese script characters song hy mean together – so the figures and the words celebrate the marriage of the couple.” (Informant at wedding)

The bridesmaids line up opposite the men who then, one by one, step forward and offer their gifts. Mrs Nguyen stands at the head of the lines and gives each of the men a small red envelope containing some money.

(Michelle) This offering we call li xi, or in Cantonese lai see, lucky money, slipped into red envelopes. It is a traditional gesture of thanks and good fortune.

At the bride's home – permission to marry
Inside the Nguyens' home, Michelle is brought in to join the wedding party by her father, as is customary in Vietnamese weddings. She is dressed in a red ao dai and traditional Vietnamese head-dress. Michelle's sister bought this special dress back from Vietnam for Michelle's wedding.

Michelle and Vinh light incense and offer prayers at the family's altar. They ask permission from their ancestors to be married and for blessings for their future family. Vinh and Michelle rise and bow to Mr and Mrs Nguyen in a gesture of thanks for their parental care of Michelle. Michelle's parents bow in return and Mr Nguyen addresses the couple, declaring, “We are handing our daughter to you, Vinh.” Although he speaks in Vietnamese his feelings are clear to all – happiness for his daughter's happiness but sorrow for her loss to the family.

Mr Nguyen then pours tea for the couple, first into one large bowl then into one cup for Vinh and one for Michelle. They drink the tea as they are watched closely by their family and friends. The offer and acceptance of tea is a very important ritual in Vietnamese culture. It denotes the commencement of important interactions and events. The tea is prepared specially by the host, and to refuse tea is considered an affront. The conduct of a tea ceremony at the wedding ritually signals that Michelle's parents have given their blessing to Vinh and Michelle's marriage.

At the couple's home – a marriage completed

Traditional Vietnamese head-dress
The couple leave Michelle's parents and her old home to travel to their own newly purchased home a few streets away. Here Vinh's mother is waiting to greet the couple and witness the next round of ceremonies.

The front door of their house is decorated with red banners embossed with gold characters – these announce the house as that of a couple of newlyweds. Inside, Michelle's shrine to Quan Yin, the Buddhist Goddess of Compassion, has been laid out with offerings of red gladioli, the Vietnamese traditional flower of celebration, and fresh fruit. The couple light incense and are joined by Vinh's mother. All three bow their heads and pray for their marriage to be blessed.

Again, this important occasion is formally celebrated with tea, as Vinh and Michelle offer a cup to Vinh's mother. Vinh's mother then sits and dresses Michelle in the gifts of jewellery she has brought; a necklace, bangle and earrings. The couple exchange gold rings.

Tea is offered to Michelle's parents and then to all the aunts and uncles, who in turn offer li xi or lai see to the couple in the traditional small red envelopes. The couple are now married in the eyes of their family and the community.

Civil marriage
The Vietnamese celebrant then carries out the civil marriage service. This part of the ceremony is of little interest to most of the guests who chat and begin the wedding breakfast laid out in the dining room. Michelle and Vinh say their vows and sign the marriage certificates in front of the celebrant and Michelle's parents.

The civil ceremony is something that some people in our community have adopted since living in Australia – basically our parents don't care about the civil part of the wedding, they just want us to get married in the Buddhist tradition. Some people in the community still do not bother to marry in the western way – but they are considered married by the community.

White wedding photos
After the wedding meal Michelle changes into her second wedding dress. It is long and white with all the trimmings of a western bridal costume.

Red is the traditional wedding colour…it is only in modern times that Vietnamese and Chinese brides have started wearing the white wedding dress. Traditionally white is not a good colour – it is worn for mourning!

She and Vinh leave for the nearby park for an afternoon posing for wedding photographs.

Getting together

Meeting
Vinh vows that he fell in love at first sight! The couple met in 2000 during a holiday at Nelson Bay in northern NSW with a group of friends. Michelle was not particularly interested but after meeting up a couple of times she changed her mind and their relationship developed over the next year.

The decision to marry came as a natural extension of their deepening relationship, although Michelle was very aware that in the eyes of her parents she needed to settle down and get married.

…In my culture there is a big focus on the girl settling down and marrying – if you are over 30 years old the parents begin to panic about your marriage prospects…but this decision to get married was mine. In very traditional times in Vietnam, marriages may have been arranged between families, and sometimes these days, when parents think that it is time for a couple to marry, the two sets of parents get together and talk about the marriage. But the choice of marriage partner is very much that of the children.

Vinh and Michelle's engagement
The couple's intention to marry was announced at a large party hosted by Michelle's father in 2001. Not long after this notices of congratulations began to appear in the local Vietnamese newspapers and soon the whole of the local Vietnamese community was aware that she and Vinh intended to marry. It was then that the gravity of the decision really dawned on Michelle, the commitment to spend her whole life with Vinh.

Divorce is frowned upon in the Vietnamese and the Chinese communities – and also our parents have lectured us about the importance of trying and trying to make a marriage work. I feel that I, and also my family, would lose face in the community if anything went wrong, and while I am not that worried about that for myself, I respect the feelings of my parents.

While they both feel it is a huge responsibility that they are undertaking, they trust that with good communication and a shared commitment to work through difficulties, they will nurture a strong and lasting relationship.

Vietnam and Australia
Michelle and Vinh's parents both fled Vietnam in the late 1970s in the aftermath of the Vietnam War and the communist government. Michelle's father had been a journalist in Vietnam and over the years in Australia he has established his own Vietnamese language newspaper in Sydney. Vinh's parents had originally come from China. After settling in Vietnam they ran a small business for many years before they came to Australia.

Vinh and Michelle share the experience of growing up in a migrant family in suburban Sydney and they also share their faith. They are both practicing Buddhists and the wedding ceremony follows the Buddhist tradition.

Both our families are Buddhist – they didn't go to the temple regularly, just on special days like New Year's Day like most families. We practice our religion at home. When we marry, the priest from the temple does not have to marry us and there are no wedding vows as in western weddings – we are married through series of ceremonies at our homes with our families.

A cross-cultural marriage

Dancing the bridal waltz
Because Vinh and Michelle have both grown up in Australia, the fact they come from different cultural backgrounds has had only a little impact on their relationship. They both speak English and share the values and attitudes of most young Australians. Nevertheless there have been some difficulties in bringing the families together and planning a wedding that accommodates both traditions. Language has been a problem, with Vinh's mother speaking Chinese and knowing little English or Vietnamese. Other cultural differences such as the experience in settling the date of the wedding have usually been able to be accommodated.

(Vinh) In the Chinese tradition you can't get married on a day with the number four in it. The word four in Chinese sounds like the word for death. Anyway, Michelle's parents went to the local Buddhist priest to get him to choose the day for our wedding according to our birth dates and times. The first date he chose turned out to be the 14th day in the lunar calendar, so they had to cancel all the bookings and try again.

At one stage during the preparations for the wedding, Vinh and Michelle were worried that Vinh's mother may not accept the arrangements for the second round of ceremonies. Traditionally these would take place at the groom's parents' home, but Vinh and Michelle's new home was planned as the venue.

Additionally, in the Chinese Buddhist tradition the groom's parents do not go to the bride's home. The groom is attended only by his uncles and brothers. When they meet with the bride's father, they negotiate a bride price which has to be agreed before the marriage goes ahead. Similarly the bride's parents would not attend the ceremonies at the groom's house. Vinh and Micelle have attempted to accommodate both traditions. In accordance with the Chinese tradition Vinh's mother greeted the couple in their new home, although strictly speaking this would happen at Vinh's mother's home.

Other traditions are shared between the Chinese and Vietnamese culture. The exchange of gold rings is observed in both cultures' wedding ceremonies as is the use of the color red, the traditional colour of happiness and wealth. Red gladioli decorate the houses and shrines, the bride's dress is red, there is red writing on Chinese wedding cakes, and before the couple's first night together the mothers make up their bed with new red sheets.

The reception - a party for hundreds

A big reception
Another common custom across Asian cultures is the large and generous wedding reception, and Vinh and Michelle's is no exception.

Asian wedding receptions are very big compared to western receptions. In Asian culture the reception is the way that you let everyone in the community know you are now married. You have to invite everyone – work colleagues, parents, friends, distant friends…

At 8pm Michelle and Vinh arrive at the Crystal Palace Reception Centre at Cabramatta in southwest Sydney. The room is filled with the 400 odd invited guests. Traditionally, wedding invitations are delivered by hand. While some of Michelle's younger friends accepted invitations by post, all her parents' friends were handed their invitation in person.

As each guest enters they hand those greeting them li xi, intended for the bride and groom. Traditionally the li xi would be given directly to the couple as they make their way to each table to share a toast to their future. The money will help cover the cost of the ten course dinner they are to enjoy. They sign the large red cloth at the reception, which Michelle and Vinh will keep as a memento of their wedding day, and take their seats.

More work for the newlyweds
The master of ceremonies begins his welcome and the evening gets underway. Michelle and Vinh have said the reception will be a party, a time for them to let off steam, but they seem to be working very hard. They make a suitable entrance amid applause and confetti and then start the process of having their photos taken with most of the 400 guests.

About half way through the evening, after the meal and thank you speeches, the house lights are dimmed, bathing the stage in patches of pastel and violet light. The wedding cake, a huge palace-shaped confection inhabited by tiny Disney characters, is brought out. The couple dance a bridal waltz, the cake is cut, and the floor is thrown open for the guests to dance and, on occasion, to lead the singing of popular Vietnamese songs. The show is stolen by one small relative of Michelle's who displays amazing confidence singing in front of the many guests assembled.

The celebrations wind down at about midnight. Michelle and Vinh look tired after such a long day but they are content on the knowledge that they have celebrated their marriage generously in the heart of their family and community.

The parents' story
Minh Thi and Tien had a traditional wedding in Vietnam in 1965.

>> Read their story

After the wedding - life together

A year after their wedding Michelle is finding marriage very much a family affair. She and Vinh often visit Michelle's parents for dinner or special occasions such as Vietnamese New Year. Vinh's family, as is often the case in the Chinese community, is one big extended family. Vinh's aunts, uncles and cousins are never far away, and ready to share a meal or just spend time together

It has been a joyous and challenging experience becoming part of the family.

Vinh and Michelle's relationship seems set to stay a family affair as they are expecting their first child in February 2004.

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