Title: Chest of Wine and Letters
General Information about Item:
- Customary Lore, Chest of Wine and Letters
- Language: Vietnamese
- Country of Origin: Vietnam
- Informant: Alexis Le
- Date of Event: September 1, 2017
Informant Data:
- Alexis was born June 22, 2000 in Naperville, Illinois. She is a senior at Metea Valley High School. Alexis and her sister were raised Catholic, but her family is not strict when it comes to upholding Catholic traditions. She is Vietnamese. Alexis’s mother is from Saigon and her father is from Hanoi. The majority of Alexis’ immediate family now lives in the United States.
Contextual Data:
- Cultural Context: This Vietnamese wedding tradition of writing letters and placing them in a locked chest with wines represents the solidifying of the relationship. Reading the letters on their anniversary is supposed to remind them of how they felt about each other on their wedding day and symbolizes revitalized love.
- Social Context: During Alexis’s aunt’s wedding ceremony, instead of trading traditional vows the bride and groom write letters to each other and place them inside of a locked chest. The chest also contains two bottles of wine, one that they will drink on their five-year anniversary and the other on their ten-year anniversary. They will also read each other’s letters on their ten-year anniversary.
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Item:
- The folklore collected here is the Vietnamese wedding tradition of placing letters that the bride and groom wrote to each other in a locked chest with wines that they will drink on their five and ten-year anniversaries. I interviewed Alexis over the phone and took notes on what she told me about the folklore. These data are not direct quotes from Alexis but are rewritten from my notes to create organized content.
Collector’s Name: Claire Burner
Tags/Keywords:
- Chest of Wine and Letters
- Vietnamese lore
- Customary lore