In Japanese wedding ceremonies (the reception), when the final stages of the event approach, the bride usually reads a letter of gratitude to her parents and her father often sheds tears. Some people may have experienced this same scene. However, is the same situation seen in Vietnamese weddings? In this article, I will write about the emotional moments of Vietnamese weddings.
The father doesn't cry.
I have been to many Vietnamese weddings so far, but I have never seen the bride’s father shedding tears. The ceremony is divided into traditional home-style and modern venue types, but both of these styles have little to do with emotional outbursts. In Vietnamese weddings, the atmosphere is more like a big party with loud music—even when someone is giving a speech, people just keep talking without paying any attention. There is no silence at all. Basically, the absence of a crying environment is the main reason.
The psychology of the father
The psychological reason why Japanese fathers cry might be that they are reminiscing about raising their daughter and the sadness of having to leave her to get married… However, it seems that the Vietnamese fathers think about things a little differently on the day of the ceremony. They say that the feeling that they can safely get their daughter married is stronger than the sense of reassurance that they managed to get their daughter married successfully and the sense of responsibility that they have to ensure the ceremony proceeds smoothly in front of many relatives. In other words, there’s no way they can let themselves get emotional and cry alone. Indeed, Vietnamese people tend to be very worried about their daughters not getting married, and there’s also a strong sense of value regarding marriage across generations.
According to recent trends
Recently, as a wedding scene featuring a wedding ceremony venue, we have seen scenes where the bride reads a letter of gratitude to her parents. However, in most cases, the bride herself is the one who is crying while reading the letter; there are very few cases where the father is crying. While some mothers who are teary-eyed may be crying with the bride, in any case, it is a rare sight for a man to cry at a wedding ceremony. When we talk to Vietnamese people about these differences between Vietnam and Japan, they often ask, “Are Japanese fathers really teary-eyed?” But in reality, what is the situation? I think it is due not only to the personality of the person themselves, but also to the atmosphere and the arrangements around them.
I recently attended a Japanese wedding for the first time in 10 years, but because I’ve gotten used to the Vietnamese style of wedding, I’ve become strangely nervous about my attire, speech, and behavior (laughs). Now that I think about it, I find Vietnamese weddings more casual to attend.
author (usu. of a particular book, etc.)
Takuma Inada
Social Security Actuary of Japan
Representative of SESSA VIETNAM CO.
Profile
Having been involved in human resources and personnel affairs in Vietnam for more than 10 years, he currently runs SESSA VIETNAM, which he started on his own. The company provides personnel consulting services mainly in the fields of human resource recruitment, personnel affairs consultation, and labor permit application handling. He spends his days observing Vietnamese people on a daily basis, and it has become his daily routine to think about the “why and what” of Vietnam. While raising his Vietnamese wife and two children, he is constantly striving to provide bilingual education in Vietnamese and English.
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