I’d Like To Marry My Favorite Old Hue Lake.

“The celebration of death puts everything in perspective.  The little stressors in life seem so much more trivial and it is easy to put things down and then just be in the moment to grieve and celebrate.  I think death is a gift to the living because it gives us the opportunity to truly celebrate the life of the person we have lost in a way that we can’t do when they are still living.”

With that extremely insightful quote in mind from my wonderful sister-in-law, Christy, let me jump into a different kind of life celebration.  My first Vietnamese wedding in Vietnam.

Ha's wedding reception at her parents' house.

Our friend, Ha, got married a couple weekends ago and oh did we celebrate.  There were toasts after toasts, umm… actual toast (for the Westerners?), blaring techno music (it was hard to converse even when we purposefully sat in the room behind the speakers.), and that essential traditional-love-palm-tree-wall-decoration in the picture above.

I like Vietnamese weddings.  They’re simple in planning/etiquette, but extravagant in celebration.  It seems like they stick to essentials, and there’s not too much for the newlyweds to worry about.  As long as there’s excess food, flowing beer, music and dedicated karaoke numbers, everyone’s happy and enjoying themselves.  There aren’t any nit-picky, perfectionist details to worry/freak out about if they go wrong… it’s just a celebration!  Stop rehearsing and organizing and just party, damnit.

As the guest-karaoke part of the reception was well on its way, we were inevitably asked to grace the audience with a Western ballad…

So, we chose the hokey-pokey.  I know, it sounds strange because it’s not exactly the most appropriate song to sing if we were at an American wedding… but oh my god was it a hit.  My friend Topher ended up singing it, while I kind of just background-rapped it.  I couldn’t help myself.  The keyboardist even dropped us a beat once he figured out our tempo.  We were a hit.

Here’s some more happy pictures of us Westerners at a Vietnamese wedding.  Imagine, if you will, that each one of these scenes is accompanied with extremely loud, HOT club beats.  Our ears could very well be internally bleeding… but with joy of course.

Not looking the best... well, just plain not looking I guess. (rhyme.)

I never said Liz was non-photogenic.

1...2...3... YO!

ex-Hueians!

And if you didn’t believe me about the toast before, here was some of the wedding reception dishes.  Sure haven’t gone to a wedding with this kind of food…

D.I.Y. steak sandwiches with mayowwwza!

good display.

Next.

It’s gotten sunnier in Hue.  It’s not always sunny in Hue.  To this I say, spend a day and play in Hue!  (For those of you who never knew how to pronounce my city, there’s a hint for you.)

Hue’s lookin’ so green (and in shape.) these days and there’s so many old, tall, vibrant nintendo-green colored trees that canopy every street.  When you’re on a motorbike, it feels like you’re in a “natural” tunnel… not a stuffy, noise-muting, underground, escape tunnel, but you know- a green (did I say green, yet?), butterfly and swallows hanging from strings, hired bunnies in tuxedos waving at you while you go by, and extinct birds chirping on repeat on a P.A. system disguised in hollow, plastic rocks- kind of Alice In Wonderland tunnel.

express button-down shirt? Why not!

Ha. I just realized this is kind of like a virtual map of that day.  Well to continue, I headed down this street (as seen above) and headed to one of my favorite spots in Hue: Tinh Tam Lake, north of the citadel.

I love it here.  I mean, what is up with this place?  Random old-styled lamp posts? Extremely tall, far-apart, palm trees?  Tons of fisherman that stay grounded at their “spots” for the entire duration of the day?  Broken down bridges that lead to random islets that look like elevated recreational parks? Extremely fragrant lotus that grows everywhere in the lake?  What does the internet have to say about this?

“Legends have it that kings and mandarins came to this place to relax and drink tea scented with lotus from the lake.”

Okay, great.  I’m not crazy for thinking this is one of the most awesome, random paradise spots in Hue.  Come visit and I’ll bring you to this wonderland.

i pahked my cahh hea.

After that, I drove straight down this road (as seen above.), took a right, took another right, and then took a left headed towards the imperial canals.  Did you picture that in your head?

one-way exit out of the imperial city.

Shrines are in every ancestral tree.

Flag tower of Hue.

Closin' up the sugarcane juice stand.

I like to plan my way home across the bridge so that it coincides with sunset. I give myself a shiny, healthy, luck-bearing point for every time I do this correctly.  If only we got those kinds of points in every game that involved insignificant, arbitrary points… life sure would be better.

The last category of photos (let’s be honest, this is how I’ve been doing posts lately… I should maybe stop taking so many pictures everywhere.)  I’d like to show you in this post is of FHF’s Mobile Clinic Program (MCP) two weekends ago.  The Friends of Hue Foundation’s mobile clinic goes out to rural communities outside of Hue city, areas that have little access and funds to medicine and doctor check-ups.  When I went with them last weekend, we served around 300 people (mostly elders) in 2.5 hours.  It was amazingly efficient.  This is when I realized… old Vietnamese people have beautiful faces. I actually couldn’t stop staring.  I probably looked so creepy smiling so lovingly at them… but it’s true!  Even though there’s definitely wear in their faces from all that manual labor, you can tell they’re still so incredibly strong for their old age.  It’s inspiring.

That was a highly inappropriate preface, since I just realized I hardly have any pictures of their faces.  haha, woops.

Oh, old Vietnamese men and your stylish, classic hats.

still got the strongest squat.

I love that woman’s face in that last picture.  I can’t quite put my finger on who she reminds me of… I’ll give you a quarter if you can help in anyway.

~ by Hy Huynh on March 7, 2009.