I wonder how many of us go through life without noticing those defining moments — the ones that quietly change the trajectory of everything. Moments that feel, in hindsight, like the universe planting a seed before we even knew what would grow from it.
I didn’t realise my story — my parents’ story — would lead me here.
If you asked me for the moment it started, it might have been being bullied by the Year 3 kids at my new primary school because of my name. It might have been the slow shrinking — taking in the message, again and again, that my culture wasn’t allowed in every room, that I needed to make myself smaller to survive. The journey that led me here was all of those moments, and all the nuances that came with growing up first-generation Vietnamese-Australian — daughter of immigrant parents who gave up everything to get here.
But the moment that pulled me toward this industry took root when I was newly engaged myself.
I can still picture it.
I was in the kitchen with my family. Dad and Grandma were seated at the dining table beside me. Grandpa on the hammock, half a metre away. Mum at the sink, prepping something — I can’t quite place what — a pot or two simmering in the background.
I’d asked the question: “How many trays do we need?”
“Eight. Usually an even number,” said Grandma.
“No, no — it has to be seven. Odd numbers are lucky,” Grandpa insisted.
They bickered, the way old grandparents do. Both were right, in their own way — each carrying fragments of a culture that had travelled across lands and oceans, survived a war, and been rebuilt from memory. My mum arrived in Australia at nineteen, looking after younger kids in the camp, reconstructing traditions from childhood glimpses and second-hand stories.
That’s the reality of diaspora. Everyone holds a piece. Nobody holds the whole picture. So I went looking.
It was late. Laptop open on my knees, I typed “Vietnamese tea ceremony” into the search bar, expecting — I don’t know, a guide? A breakdown? Something that would walk me through what I was supposed to do, and more importantly, why.
What I got back was thin. A few generic checklists, a couple of blogs that skimmed the surface – light incense, pour tea, bow to the elders – none of the meaning underneath. I even read the ones on Vietnamese blogs and forums. Again, not much there.
I closed the laptop that night with more questions than I’d started with — thinking about that kitchen. Eight trays. Seven trays. Both right. Neither complete.
I’m Vietnamese-Australian. I knew a tea ceremony was part of my wedding. I knew it mattered. But knowing it mattered and knowing what it meant were two different things — and nobody had written down the bridge between them.
I started asking around. My older cousins felt the same thing when they got married. My friends after me, the same. All of us quietly wondering: why is it so hard for us? Why is it so hard to learn and honour our own culture and traditions? Why is it so hard to find our people?
And again and again, I’d watch the tea ceremony get quietly set aside. Not because couples didn’t love their culture – but because in a world where language is already hard, where many couples don’t speak Vietnamese fluently, where the Western way feels more familiar and the Eastern way feels like too much trouble – it becomes easier to let it go. When tea ceremonies are left behind, or descend into chaos because no one quite knows what they’re meant to look and feel like – when the meaning is lost, the tradition becomes obsolete.
That’s cultural erasure. And it happens gently, gradually, quietly, one wedding at a time.
This started with my story. But it was never meant to stay there.
(Part 2: All Weddings Are Not the Same – coming soon)