Belgian engineer Cools Nick Dirk married Le Thi Kim Sieu from the Vietnamese Pakoh ethnic group. The three-day wedding took place in the mountainous district of Aluoi, according to the traditional customs of her family. Under those customs, the groom was expected to bring gifts: eleven pigs, ten chickens, a pair of goats, as well as dishes, mats, gongs and money.
Thirty-year-old Sieu and thirty-five-year-old Dirk met in March 2024. At the time she worked in a tailor's shop in the historic town of Hoi An, where she had moved after an unsuccessful attempt to start her own business. He, a chemical technologist from Antwerp, had come to Vietnam for a friend's wedding and on holiday. They met through a dating app.
After several days of messaging, Dirk went with friends to the shop where Sieu worked to have clothes made. He was immediately drawn to how softly she spoke and how patiently she dealt with customers. That evening he invited her to dinner. Over the week in Hoi An they walked around the town a great deal. Before leaving, Dirk confessed his feelings and invited Sieu to travel with his group to northern Vietnam, but she declined, saying she did not feel romantic attraction.
Dirk left, but every evening he called and wrote to her. A week later he cut short his trip and returned to Hoi An. Sieu was astonished to see him at the entrance of the shop with his suitcases. She later said that from then on she began to feel warm feelings for him. For the next two weeks Dirk accompanied her everywhere. He offered financial help, aware of her difficulties, but she refused. Before his return to Belgium, Sieu promised to give her answer in six months.
Back in Europe, Dirk called her every day. From their conversations he learned about her childhood in a farming family in central Vietnam. She learned that he was the youngest son in a family that once owned a farm in Belgium. In October 2024 Dirk flew to Vietnam again, and this time Sieu answered his feelings with consent.
After two years of a long-distance relationship, the couple decided to marry. The wedding took place in early October. The bride's family arranged all the traditional Pakoh rituals to inform the ancestors of the marriage and to ask them for peace for the young couple. Dirk recalled being surprised by the number of required offerings, but was ready to provide them out of respect for the bride's family's culture.
On the first day the groom brought the gifts to the bride's home for the engagement ceremony. On the second day, since Dirk's parents could not travel from Belgium, the bride's family rented a venue that stood in for the groom's home for the wedding procession. The couple took part in the rites, prayed at the altar and fed each other ban khoat, a traditional sticky rice cake that symbolizes love for the Pakoh. On the third day they returned to the bride's home and completed the wedding ceremony in the company of relatives and neighbors.
The newlyweds have not yet decided where they will live permanently, in Vietnam or in Belgium. Sieu wants to stay close to her parents, while Dirk's family lives in Europe. For now they plan to live in both countries.
I travelled thousands of kilometres to Vietnam with a tourist map, but in the end the most important destination turned out to be the place where the person I wanted to meet was.
— Cools Nick Dirk
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