Vietnam bridal shower – how Hanoi can surprise

On my third day in Hanoi, I has retraced my steps down to the Old Gate at the southern end of the Old Quarter, determined to escape the tourists, 4x4s incessant scootesr and give Hanoi’s old quarter a chance to surprise me.

When I usually go out on my own with no specific brief I always do an exercise for a few minutes. Not the bend and touch your toes variety which would surely have looked incongruous but a”dust off the cobwebs” type of exercise. I normally pick a subject – it can be a color or a theme such as children , bicycles, fruit, flowers etc. I then give myself 5 or 10 minutes to shoot only that subject. It makes me focus; to really look for patterns, colors, pattens and shapes. Todays theme was actually a technique. I wedged myself inside the old Southern gate, braving the mad moped riders who seem to think I was a legitimate target and just practiced at panning.

After this I wandered off down a tiny side street when, passing a small temple, I heard chanting, clapping and yelling. I peered around the corner to see a staircase festooned with shoes and, gingerly putting my head through the door at the top, I came across this tiny temple bursting with people. In the corner were three musicians on traditional instruments producing a beautiful melodic chant like sound and in the centre was a young woman, whirling and yelling as the crowd clapped her on. I was immediately invited in and found a place to watch.

To the uninitiated it was a cross between whirling dervishes, an informal exorcism and pass the parcel. this was Hanoi’s way of rewarding me for my perseverance. It transpired that I had found Vietnam’s version of the bridal shower.

The young woman in the centre, dressed in a beautiful ornate traditional gown and headdress was wheeling and turning – throwing out small denomination bank notes to the ever appreciative audience.

I desperately wanted to capture some of this maggie but the light was terrible and even with my ISO at 3200 and a fast lens, I was getting sub 1/15 of a second if I was lucky. Furthermore, The place was so packed that I really could do nothing other than watch as my cameras would definitely have intruded. But again Hanoi surprised me.

A lady – who turned out to be the bride’s cousin – grabbed me by the arm in a vulcan death grip and marched me towards the door. Embarrassed that I had blundered carelessly into some ritual, I was making my apologies when she passed by the door and, shooing the bride’s family to one side, pushed me down to the very front on the left hand side.

Whilst this got me incredibly close it also put me right behind one of the main actors in this elaborate theatre and made it almost impossible to get a clear shot of the bride to be. Over the course of about an hour the bride changed – or rather was helped into – a variety of vibrant traditional costumes. With each new get up she would light joysticks or small wooden candles and then resume her whirling and whooping.

Other times the whirling and whopping would be accompanied by the handout of cash, which got ever more generous as the event went on. Despite my best efforts to try and not be in line for any free donations, and not wishing to offend by returning any that were given to me, I am ashamed to say I actually came out of the whole event $15 the richer!

It was an extraordinary 90 minutes and a tremedous privilege to witness everything at first hand; to be allowed to shoot some videos and some images and to have seen the real Hanoi up close and personal.

Whilst the conditions mean that the images are grainy and focusing was a challenge, for once the images were of secondary importance. I shall remember the joy, music and laughter that Hanoi’s Old quarter surprised me with for many years to come.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 25th, 2012 at 1:35 am. It is filed under Travel and tagged with Hanoi, Old quarter, Travel, Vietnam, Vietnamese wedding. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.