Getting married is an important event in a Vietnamese’s life. The procedure of the ancient wedding ceremony was very complicated. Current wedding ceremony procedures include the following steps: the search for a husband or wife, the proposal, the registration, and finally the wedding. Depending on habits of specific ethnic groups,…

According to legends, chewing quid of betel and areca has been a custom since the Hung Vuong period and is connected to the antique legend of betel and areca. A quid of betel, also called trau, is composed of four elements: an areca leaf (sweet taste), betel bark (hot taste),…

The Vietnamese culture has always evolved on the basis of the wet rice civilization. Thus, the lifestyle of the Vietnamese population is closely related to its village and native lands.  In Vietnamese society, people gather together to form villages in rural areas, and guilds in urban areas. Villages and guilds…

A very popular belief among Vietnamese is the custom of the ancestor cult. In every household, an ancestor altar is installed in the most solemn location. Vietnamese believe that the soul of a dead person, even if dead for many generations, still rests along with their descendants on earth. The…

“The sense of the dead is that of the final,” says a Vietnamese proverb, meaning that funeral ceremonies must be solemnly organized. Formerly funeral ceremonies went as following: the body was washed and dressed; then a le ngam ham, or chopstick, was laid between the teeth and a pinch of…

In Vietnamese customs, there are a lot of superstitions related to the newborn baby after birth. These are some most common of them: the praise should not be given to the newborn baby; the pillow of the baby should have seven chunks of mulberry with a needle; and there is…

In Vietnam, there are three main kinds of adopted child: formal adopted child, symbolic adopted child and pretended adopted child. Formal adopted child There are two sub kinds of adopted child in this type. The first one is the self-made adopted child. When a family don’t have son, they adopt…

Normally in Vietnam especially in the countryside regions, three generations live under the same roof. Based on Confucianism telnet, when a girl gets marriage she has to follow her husband and live in her husband family. It has some difficulties for the wife when she is pregnant and has baby…

According to the old custom, after checking the family annals, avoiding the profanation of taboo names (name of a child is same as the name of ancestors); the newborn child is officially given a name. In case of the name of the child is similar the name of ancestors, it…

Vietnamese engagement ceremony is an important ceremony before the wedding which involve both fiancé’s and fiancée’s families. In the past, engagement ceremony was considered very important even than the wedding ceremony because it was an official day to announce the wedding, the relationship between two families. Nowadays, it is less…