An Hoi Ceremony

(PICTURE: My five unmarried men holding the presents we gave to the Nguyens.)

I googled "An Hoi ceremony" to be able to explain exactly what we were doing the night before the wedding. Here's the first thing that came up:

Le an hoi (betrothal ceremony): Some time before the wedding, the groom and his family visit the bride and her family with round lacquered boxes known as betrothal presents composed of gifts of areca nuts and betel leaves, tea, cake, fruits, wines and other delicacies covered with red cloth and carried by unmarried girls or boys. Both families agree to pick a good day for wedding.

By having picked a wedding date before the an hoi, we were clearly violating some Vietnamese traditions. In fact, we were in violation of a lot of Vietnamese traditions and tried our best to make up for it during the ceremony. As Huyen explained to my parents, usually a boys family has to ask the girls family three different times for permission for their relationship. The first is the "small ask" where the boys family asks the girl's family if they can meet each other. The "second ask" is when the boy's family asks the girl's family if they can date. The final "big ask" is when they ask for permission to marry. At our an hoi, my parents acknowledged that they hadn't taken these steps because of the proximity of our homes. They then combined all three asks into one and luckily got permission for me to marry Huyen.

(PICTURE: My parents asking the three questions. The Vietnamese version of the Passover four questions.)

After being given permission to marry Huyen, I for one breathed a giant sigh of relief. As mentioned, I know my family and friends love me but I'm sure they would have been quite pissed to have traveled around the world to not have a wedding. It was a good thing we asked for permission early in the day though because things got a little bit craaaaaaaaaaaaazy as the sun went down!

(PICTURE: Me and my finally official fiance who looked absolutely beautiful in her ao dai.)

Right after the ceremony, everyone sat down to eat a huge meal. The food was delicious which was only topped by the homemade rice wine. I had been fearing that my crew wouldn't like the rice wine but those fears quickly disappeared. Before I knew it, friends (Anthony and Mark) were figuring out ways to take the wine home with them to America. Many bottles (the wine was placed in used plastic water bottles) were finished before the sunset. The consumption of alcohol put everyone in an even better mood and helped get the party going...and what a party it was.

Some of the highlights in no particular order were:

1. Family and friends trying betel. There were mixed reactions to chewing on the nut which gave more than a couple people a pretty strong buzz.

2. Everyone being subjected to extremely loud music. Huyen and I literally asked the DJ about 12 times to turn the volume down. Each time he would put up a slight protest and then turn the dial...only to gradually turn it back up to deafening levels. Eventually we just started going over and turning the dial ourselves.

(PICTURE: Urszula and her dancing partner.)

3. Dancing, dancing and more dancing. Sebastian's mother Urszula lead the charge on the dance floor and never stopped breaking it down until we went home. In a moment none of us will soon forget, she started dancing with a 70+, four foot tall, village woman who I'm sure has never danced before in her life. The woman was having the time of her life getting down to the beats with Urszula. However, the woman's daughter must have feared that the excitement was too much for her mother so she eventually pulled her off the dance floor. About thirty minutes later though, the mother sneaked away from her daughter and started dancing again. It was classic. What was also classic was seeing Huyen's father on the dance floor. Huyen's father is such a great guy and just loves to have fun. Seeing him dance with a giant smile on his face is something I'll always cherish.

(PICTURE: Some of the kids that turned into dancing machines when the sun went down.)

4. Kids, kids and more kids. Every kid from the village showed up to the party; how could they not with the music blaring so loudly. The kids had quite the moves and were taught new ones by Mark, Anthony, Dave and Elissa.

(PICTURE: Singing the Kingston Trio hit "Tom Dooley" with my sister and dad. My childhood road trips prepared us for this moment.)

5. Singing, singing and more singing. Eventually we stopped the dance music and began to karaoke. As I've documented many times on the blog, I'm not a huge karaoke fan. However, it was perhaps the greatest time of my life doing karaoke with family and friends in the middle of Huyen's village.

(PICTURE: Anthony rocking it out.)

6. Everyone having fun. It was truly awesome seeing all of my friends and family having a great time. I'm pretty sure nobody knew what to expect going into this event and it turned out to be one of the best parties of everyone's life. Most importantly though, the locals had an awesome time. There were many moments when my friends and family asked me, "Are these people going to think we're crazy?" or "Are they having fun too?". I kept asking Huyen if everyone was having a good time and the answer was always yes. You could see it on everyone's faces as there were very few without a smile.

(PICTURE: Me with some happy locals.)

It ended up being a perfect night; you know, besides the fact that Huyen's parents said I could marry her. In truth, the an hoi was definitely a lot more fun than the wedding. However, the wedding was much more special...

Happy Birthday Huyen!

(PICTURE: The birthday girl in Trang An, the morning after our wedding.)

Happy birthday to my amazing wife!!!!

I'd like to say that being married to me is the gift that keeps on giving but I'm not sure that line will make Huyen feel good if I don't give her a birthday present. After months of hard work putting together our wedding, Huyen deserves a phenomenal birthday. The problem with a Monday birthday though is that it doesn't allow for the proper celebration time that is due for one's special day. Sooooo, Huyen will get an extended birthday this year with a few different gifts along the way. I'll post about all of that though in some future blogs when all the wedding blogs have run their course...

Hotel Stress

(PICTURE: The hotel bathroom, sans shower curtain.)

Coming into the wedding, one of the things I was most worried about was how my family and friends would react to the hotel we were staying at the night before the big day. I blogged about this a month or so ago, but to summarize, Huyen and had decided to stay at a hotel near her village the night before the wedding so that guests wouldn't have to brave the Vietnamese highways any more than absolutely necessary. In order to do this though, our guests would have to brave a typical Vietnamese small city hotel. We chose the nicest hotel in Phu Ly, which isn't really saying much. To put things in perspective, this hotel had a jewelry shop on the first floor, a cafe and pool hall on the second floor and some sort of restaurant on the third floor.

Here were my fears/stresses in no particular order:
1. The beds would be wayyyyyy too hard for people used to soft beds.
2. The hotel wouldn't be clean enough for everyone.
3. People would be worried that every criminal in the area would descend on the hotel once they saw 24 foreigners get off a giant pink bus.
4. That there was no room service...or any service of any kind for that matter.
5. That the showers didn't have curtains.

Although some people ended up making a comment or two about #5, the other fears didn't seem to bother anyone. However, that didn't mean I didn't suffer some serious stress at the hotel. Firstly, we arrived at the hotel and only had 30 minutes to check in and get ready before we had to depart for the an hoi (the ceremony where my parents must ask for permission for me to marry Huyen). Yeah, 30 minutes for 24 people to get ready after a day of sightseeing and sitting on a bus.

When the bus pulled up to the hotel, I jumped off and grabbed a couple of bags and headed to the front desk to manage the check-in process. The hotel was incredibly prepared and had keys laid out for 15 different rooms. Slowly but surely people took the one elevator up to the fourth floor or lugged their way up the four flights of stairs. While I was checking everyone in, I was barraged with a serious of questions like: "Why isn't there toilet paper in the room?" or "Is there heat?" or "Why isn't there a sheet on my bed?" or "Why do I have to give them my passport?". These were probably questions which could have been answered later in the evening but for whatever reason people wanted immediate responses too.

One question people didn't ask me though was, "Did you take up your dad's black carry-on bag with all of his medication?" The answer to that question was yes. In fact, it was right at my feet for everyone to see. What I didn't know was that four flights below me were my parents and a few relatives who were all having borderline heart attacks looking for my dad's bag. My father naturally panicked when his bag wasn't on the bus and thought someone had stolen it. Nobody thought to think that maybe some idiot (me) who was trying to be helpful took the bag upstairs. Anyway, at some point someone walked into the lobby and said to me, "Your dad is freaking out downstairs because he can't find his medication bag." As we sorted the situation out and got pulses back to normal, someone mentioned that Huyen had been called during the search for the bag. The last thing in the world I wanted was for Huyen to be bothered before the ceremony so I tried to call her back to tell her that everything was okay. But this turned out to be one more small stress -- my phone had run out of money. To put into perspective how many people were calling me with questions over the previous couple of days, my phone had run out of pre-paid money fifteen times faster than it usually does.

Well, after checking everyone into their room and answering about 293 questions, I had ten minutes to get ready. Luckily it doesn't take a groom as long to get ready as a bride. I went to my room which I was sharing with my sister and quickly jumped into the shower. At some point I heard Hannah say, "Oh no, I broke the table." Turns out ironing on a glass table top isn't a good idea. The broken table though turned out to be the only casualty in the panic to get ready. Miraculously everyone was good to go right on time and we headed to the an hoi where all of our fingers were crossed that Huyen's parents would accept Huyen marrying into my family. I just thanked my lucky stars that they hadn't been at the hotel during the panic mode or else they surely would have sent us all packing back to America.

Thank You, Hang!

(PICTURE: Heather and Hang at the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum complex.)

The day before the wedding, my group of family and friends was greatly assisted by Hang. Hang was our "local" on the bus who helped to navigate any and all issues that came up. Hang helped to arrainge for our wedding flowers to be dropped off. Hang helped direct the bus driver what to do. Hang helped be an unofficial tour guide. Hang helped place drink orders at lunch. Hang helped get family and friends extra sheets at the hotel. Hang helped...well, she helped with a lot of things.

While doing that, she also formed a bunch of friendships with my guests. I think the strongest friendship she made was with Heather, my good friend Noah's mom. I remember at some point during the wedding (or was it the night before) being asked to take a photo of Hang and Heather. I mean, the friendship was that strong that the groom had to take photos of them!

Last year, Hang studied abroad in England. She really enjoyed England but I'm pretty sure she didn't make as many English friends in that year as she made American friends in two days of hanging out with my peeps. That's probably because she never met anyone quite like Anthony or Mark in England.


(PICTURE: Hang and Anthony at the an hoi.)


(PICTURE: Hang and Mark at the wedding.)

Thanks for everything, Hang!

Flowers

After visiting Uncle Ho, my group piled into our giant pink bus and headed for lunch. Huyen and I had pre-ordered a bunch of food at one of our favorite clay pot restaurants:


(PICTURE: The crew at lunch.)

At some point, while everyone was eating, my student Huyen showed up with a few boxes of flowers:


(PICTURE: Two boxes of roses that Huyen, my student, put together.)

As a wedding present to Huyen and me, my student Huyen had personally bought and arrainged all of the flowers for our wedding. Huyen (my student) must have been a florist in a previous life because she did an amazing job putting together center pieces, corsages and bouquets for the wedding. Huyen (my wife) and I were very touched at Huyen's wedding present especially since Huyen (my student) couldn't actually attend the wedding. On top of that, this gift was extra special to us since we had forgotten to order flowers!

Ho Ho Hold On There!

(PICTURE: My sister, mom, dad and me at the Ho Chi Minh stilt house complex.)

I've been to the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum no less than a dozen times; that's about eleven times more than the average native Hanoian. In all those times, the most drama that ever occurred is when a security officer went through one of my female friend's bags and pulled out a tampon to question her as to what it was.

When I took my family and friends to the mausoleum, well, there was a little more drama. As per usual, the security stopped all the women and went through their bags. Then after passing through the metal detectors, everyone turned over their cameras to the camera booth to hold on to. Next we all waited our turn in line to enter the mausoleum. After waiting for some delegation to go through before us, we were given the green light to enter the always freezing cold room. Two by two we entered the most sacred place in Hanoi and walked around the glass-encased body of Ho Chi Minh. The serenity of the moment though was quickly broken as soon as I exited the tomb; that's when one my family members said something like, "The security guards grabbed Dana out of line to search her." Then someone said, "Did she sneak in a camera?" Immediately my stomach dropped thinking that my cousin hadn't turned over her camera and was now getting interrogated by the elite guards who are stationed inside the mausoleum. The drama ended quickly though as Dana walked out of the mausoleum with a smile on her face. Thankfully she had followed the rules and apparently just looked suspicious.

In all my times visiting the mausoleum, I've never seen the guards budge an inch. However, when the August clan is in town, everything goes out the window.

Rooftop Drinks

(PICTURE: Going from dinner to drinks...)

To complete the tour of Hanoi/rehearsal dinner day, Huyen and I had reserved the top deck of "the hidden cafe" in the Old Quarter. I'm not gonna write the name or address of this place since that would be like a magician revealing his secrets. However, this cafe is now in like every tour book since some travel writers stumbled upon it about two years ago. I owe my person discovery of the place to my cousin Justin who found it back in '08.


(PICTURE: In my opinion, the true discoverer of the hidden cafe -- my cousin Justin.)

To get to the top deck, one has to walk up three different flights of stairs including a very tight spiral staircase. I was a little concerned some of my family members would have trouble getting to the top but luckily every ascended with no problems. Although, my father did let out a few "Oy yoi yois" which Huyen then began to imitate over the next couple of days. The top deck gives a beautiful view of Hoam Kiem lake but as my family and friends soon discovered, is quite cold. Yes, cold. I had warned people that Hanoi was cold but nobody seemed to believe me. It wasn't until the wind was whipping around us that people finally admitted that they should have packed a heavier sweater.

After about an hour, a lot of the older folks headed back to their hotels and/or explored the night market which was right around the corner (man, I'm basically giving away the location now!). The younger folks stayed around for a while longer and had some more drinks. Huyen and my friends Celine and Dan showed up after a little bit and gave us a wedding present -- a really cool photoshopped picture of the two of us that makes me look like Hunter S. Thompson. I would put the picture on the blog but I sent it home with my parents and forgot to take a photo of it. When I get back to America I'll take a picture of it on my wall.

Around 10:30 or so, my old Hanoi buddy Long showed up at the cafe. Long came back to Hanoi for the wedding and to meet up with some other former Hanoian friends. It was great to see Long since it had been nearly ten months or so since we last hung out.

After drinks, Huyen and I headed home. It was a long day which started at 5:30AM and included sheppharding 24 people around Hanoi, seeing a water puppet show, a rehearsal dinner full of tears and drinks on a freezing rooftop. This was my last night seeing Huyen before the wedding since the next morning she returned home to Ha Nam. When we got home we both smiled at each other and said how happy we were that everything was going well...and then we passed out in about 2.8 seconds.