Tả 61, Phong 65 — Ha Giang Vietnam

“We lived in the same vil­lage. At first, we found out that we matched and “joked” with each oth­er, then we fell in love. Her fam­i­ly reject­ed our mar­riage for 4 years, even­tu­al­ly, they allowed us. You have to be per­sis­tent and patient, oth­er­wise, you can­not have a wife” Phong says chuck­ling shyly.

“We learned about our love for each oth­er through our eyes because we did­n’t have many chances to sit togeth­er. We were not allowed to hang out much. Young peo­ple at that time were strict­ly con­trolled. After 9:00 PM we had to go home to sleep.”

“Accord­ing to our tra­di­tion, once a cou­ple gets mar­ried, they will be togeth­er until the end of their lives. No mat­ter how poor or sick, or how hard our life is, they will nev­er give up on each oth­er. If one of them pass­es away, they can get mar­ried to anoth­er per­son, but even then peo­ple will often stay as a widow(er) because they love each other.”

Tả 61, Phong 65
Pà Thẻn Eth­nic Group
Ha Giang, Vietnam

Tả and Phong have been hap­pi­ly mar­ried for 43 years.