Minh Thi & Tien

Author: Mary Ann Hamilton, Getting Married project

Getting Married: Minh Thi and Tien Minh Nguyen met in 1965 in Saigon. They married in a traditional Buddhist wedding and settled down to a new life as a married couple. In 1975 their settled life changed as they began their journey to a new home in Australia.

In the beginning

Working in Saigon
Minh Thi and Tien Minh Nguyen met when Minh Thi started work as a secretary for her future husband, who was at the time an aspiring and talented young journalist and publisher. Over the next six months, Tien became increasingly impressed with and attached to his hard working and pretty secretary, and he eventually suggested that they marry.

Considering marriage
Despite the fact that Minh Thi had been receiving some special attention from Tien, who treated her to dinner regularly, took her to concerts, trips to the beach and picnics in the country, she was quite surprised when Tien proposed. As an attractive and charming 16 year old she had many suitors at the time from among the officers in the South Vietnamese army. She was careful not to encourage these young men

(Tien) I had to discourage them – I used to say I was too young to think about marriage and I did not want to get married until I was about 20 years old!

But when Tien proposed, Minh Thi thought very carefully and decided that his kind and considerate nature was a prize that she could not lose.

Meeting the parents
Before Minh Thi could accept Tien's proposal of marriage she insisted that she had to take him to her home to meet her parents and gain their approval for the marriage. In the 1960s in Vietnam the decision to marry was not made by the young couple alone. Parental approval was essential and in some cases, especially in country areas, parents arranged the marriage of their children.

Her parents were very impressed with Tien. He fulfilled all their hopes as a future son-in-law and husband for their daughter. He was good looking, well behaved, had a stable life and a good job. Having a good job was important in Vietnam during that time when many people could not find work and struggled to keep their families in the face of a country torn by civil war.

Getting engaged
Similarly, Tien's parents were delighted by Minh Thi, and with both families' approval, Minh Thi and Tien became engaged.

In Vietnam at that time the engagement is a real commitment to get married… You wear a ring and people know that you have a future husband – other boys cannot look at you as you are engaged. Being engaged is almost the same as being married in Vietnam.

Traditionally, Vietnamese engagements are very short to ensure that the girl's reputation is not damaged. In traditional culture it is only after the engagement that the boy and girl can see each other freely. While these strict mores had been relaxed a little by the 1960s, allowing Minh Thi and Tien to spend time together without censure, they still had a short engagement of three months.

The wedding

Preparing for the wedding
Minh Thi and Tien were married in the traditional Vietnamese-Buddhist way. As is customary, during the three months before they were married Tien took on the responsibility to organise and purchase everything for the wedding. The groom buys all the clothes for himself and for the bride and her family, he organises and pays for the wedding party and purchases the wedding jewellery.

Just married!

These things, the clothes and jewellery, are given to the girl's family on the day of the wedding. In Vietnam the amount and quality of the jewellery is important as it shows how wealthy the groom and his family are… If the jewellery is poor quality people will feel sorry for the family and the girl. Here in Australia these things don't matter so much.

The day of the wedding
On their wedding day in 1965, Tien arrived at Minh Thi's house and was greeted by her parents. Minh Thi was dressed in ao dai, the traditional Vietnamese ‘long dress', but instead of the traditional headdress she wore a white, western-style veil, a fashion that was popular among Vietnamese brides in the 1960s.

In front of her father's shrine dedicated to Buddha, the couple prayed and then Tien offered tea to Minh Thi's parents. The gift of wedding jewellery is then given by the groom to the bride. The couple then visited Tien's parents' house and repeated these rituals for them. More wedding jewellery is then given to the bride by members of the husband's family.

Minh Thi and Tien and their families then departed for the reception which was held in a large restaurant in Saigon. Tien had organised a virtual fleet of cars to transport not only the bridal couple but their parents and cousins and uncles and aunts. The bridal car was elaborately decorated with flowers.

The reception
The reception was suitably large and lavish with special dishes of beef and chicken served to the guests. There was no wedding cake and no dancing as dancing was seen as a quite immoral activity in Vietnam at the time. There was much singing though, and MinhThi and her friends sang to entertain the guests and contribute to the festivities.

Life together

Married life
Many Vietnamese brides at the time went to live with their husband's family. For some this was not a happy way to start their married life.

Some groom-side parents think the bride is their new servant. The girl has to cook and clean, iron and shop. Some brides who are very beautiful when they marry loose their looks after a couple of years of marriage.

This was not Minh Thi's experience as she and her husband went to live in his own home where over the next 10 years she bore and raised her two sons and two daughters.

When I married I knew I would have to work hard at my marriage. I knew I must try to keep peace in my marriage, I was taught that it was not right for a wife to be angry or to fight with her husband. I try to resolve conflicts by talking and discussing.

Leaving Vietnam
The partnership has been tested through times of great upheaval, when the family had to leave their war-torn homeland. In 1975, Saigon fell to the North Vietnamese communist government. When Tien was not able to work, their previously comfortable life was transformed into one of struggle. The couple decided that to provide opportunities for their children, they must attempt to escape Vietnam. Months of separation followed, after Tien migrated to Australia while Minh Thi and the children were detained in a refugee camp in Thailand. The family was reunited in Perth in the late 1970s, moving to Sydney soon after to establish themselves and their new life in Australia.

Over the years they have established a life of relative comfort and security in Sydney's southwest. Their children have all grown up and married and they have just celebrated the wedding of their daughter, Michelle, to Vinh Luc.

> Back to Michelle & Vinh's wedding

> Take a look at some more weddings