Tuesday, June 15, 2010

Marriage Prep Party

On the way home from Minh's parents' house (see previous entry), we stopped and visited two people who were sick, neighbors of his. Then we stopped at a parish to have lunch. The young people of the parish were celebrating the end of marriage prep classes, three months of meeting every week. Women can get married in Viet Nam at 18 and men at 20. The ages for this class were from 18-35. There were about 30 couples there, but you'll notice that the men sit together and the women do the same. There was a huge kep of "Same Day Beer" sitting in the middle of the room which seemed to cause all of the festivity to happen. Same Day Beer is made the say before and must be drunk the next day. I'm not sure why. Perhaps it's a way to get everyone to have a good time. I caught one of the men's tables toasting themselves. It's kind of loud, so be sure to turn the volume down a bit.