Strolling along Tao­yuan’s Yan­ping Road between Da­lin and Jian­guo Roads, visitors are greeted by billboards featuring languages unfamiliar to most Taiwanese—Thai, Indonesian, and Vietnamese. Restaurants serve authentic dishes from Southeast Asia, and shops selling mobile phones, clothing, and sundries have a strong Southeast-Asian flavor. It feels like a world apart, a microcosm of Southeast Asia.

 

Le Van Anh decorated her restaurant with images of Vietnam to remind diners of home.

On one four-story building on Da­lin Road hangs a sign for the Candy Wedding Salon. The humble building lacks the elegant window displays and seductive blown-up wedding pictures of fancier wedding boutiques. The first three floors house a restaurant, and those in search of wedding dresses have to make the climb up to the fourth floor.

Le Van Anh, who hails from Vietnam, opened the wedding salon less than three years ago, and it has already found favor among many Vietnamese living in Taiwan. Le, who has lived in Taiwan for nearly two decades, has also become a reliable source of support for many Vietnamese spouses during hard times.

Finding fulfillment in helping the community

Born in Vietnam’s Nghe An Province, Le arrived in Tao­yuan in 1998 and worked as a quality control inspector at an electronics plant. There she first met her future husband, an engineer, and the couple married a short time later. After giving birth to her second child, she decided to bring her elder son, who had reached school age, back from Vietnam, where he was being cared for by her mother. “My boss was really supportive,” she says. “He let me bring work home to do in my spare time and told me I could return to work whenever I was ready.” 

Artifacts from home are displayed in Le Van Anh’s wedding salon. She plans to establish a small museum in the space to introduce Vietnam to a wider audience.

But she never dreamed that a few years later, the factories in Tao­yuan would close down one after another. Her old job no longer existed, and even her part-time work dried up. Leafing through the newspaper, Le came across a help-wanted ad posted by a local church for a job assisting foreign workers. The pay was low, but she would have the opportunity to help fellow Vietnamese. She decided to give it a try. “The job entailed helping take care of foreign workers placed by the National Immigration Agency,” she says. “I was often called upon by the police to translate for foreign workers. I realized that many foreign workers inadvertently committed offenses because they didn’t understand Taiwan’s laws, or could not stand the pressure put on them by their employers and therefore ran away, only to be picked up by the police. As I saw how much they suffered, I grew more and more sympathetic with their plight.”

In the five years that she did the job, Le made many good friends and witnessed many instances of mistreatment, sharpening her desire to serve Taiwan’s Vietnamese community.

During that period, the Tao­yuan County Vietnamese Women’s Association was also voting for a new director. Le won the election and was subsequently invited to serve on the Women’s Rights Advancement Committee of the then Tao­yuan County Council (Tao­yuan became a special municipality in 2014), where she met many well-intentioned councilors who assisted her in her work. But the more effort she put into the job, the greater the demands on her became, and she found that it was taking up much of her personal time and eating up her personal funds. The post at the church paid only NT$25,000 per month, and she was struggling to get by. She started to consider opening a business.    

“After thinking it over, I realized that it would be easier to open a small restaurant,” Le says. “This would also give Vietnamese friends a place to meet.”

An exquisitely decorated traditional teapot warmer.

She first opened the business in the ­Neili area of Tao­yuan’s ­Zhongli District, where many foreign laborerswere located, but later moved to Yan­ping Road in Tao­yuan District, where the restaurant became a popular gathering place. It also, however, attracted trouble. Foreign laborers lacked a place to blow off steam, and came to her place to drink. They sometimes caused a ruckus after drinking, often prompting the police to intervene, which caused Le much embarrassment. “In the past I used to be treated with deference when the police wanted my help communicating with Vietnamese people,” she says. “After I opened a restaurant, however, I was treated no better than a suspect and questioned by the police. It was too much to take!” She therefore decided to close the shop.

Finding new cures for homesickness

Le knew however that husband’s salary wasn’t enough to cover the mortgage and car payments and raise a family, so she decided to try her hand at a different business. “I noticed that many other Vietnamese women had opened nail salons and beauty parlors,” she says. “I used to run a wedding salon in Vietnam, so why not open one here?”

Le Van Anh’s love of photography was one of the reasons she opened her wedding salon.

When Le was running her restaurant, she held singing contests for patrons and even hosted a wedding party. She also wanted a place that would have space where Vietnamese wives could take courses and their children could take Vietnamese language classes. Once she settled on the location, she rented the entire building without hesitation and set out on her new enterprise. 

The new wedding salon became an instant sensation among Vietnamese brides. Aside from offering traditional Vietnamese and Western-style wedding outfits the salon also arranges for wedding photos and can organize the wedding itself, all for only NT$50,000. It’s a real steal. 

“Vietnamese wedding ceremonies are much like traditional Taiwanese wedding banquets of the past,” Le says. “We like to invite musicians to play throughout the event.”

When Taiwanese people attend Vietnamese weddings, they often remark on how lively they are. This is the nature of Vietnamese people—a love of singing and dancing, with open hearts. After organizing a number of weddings, Le had a good working relationship with the performers. When factories or other groups want to put on a celebration for foreign laborers, they turn to Le.

Le Van Anh has organized events large and small, including a concert by Dan Vinh Hung, a famous crooner of love songs, which drew a crowd of 15,000. (courtesy of Le Van Anh)

“Once I had invited a famous Vietnamese singer and paid a deposit of more than NT$100,000,” Le says. “But I couldn’t raise enough money to host the event. I was worried to death!”

After Le sought sympathy from some friends, word got to the director of the New Immigrant Women’s Care Association of Tao­yuan, Yang Hui­qing, who said that she would work it out, and Le should just carry on with the event.

In the end the event was a huge success. About 15,000 people flocked to the venue to see Dan Vinh Hung, a Vietnamese prince of love songs, perform live. It was the biggest event Le had ever organized. When she found out that Yang had put up all the remaining costs herself, she couldn’t hold back her tears.

Supporting immigrant communities

Le has organized events both big and small, including helping Vietnamese fans in Taiwan watch World Cup qualifying matches, arranging auditions for a Vietnamese TV talent show, putting on barbecues for the Mid-Autumn Festival, and staging charitable fundraisers. “Because foreign laborers are scattered all over Taiwan, it’s important to hold the events near a railway station, so they can take the train,” she says.

The well-equipped, affordable Candy Wedding Salon has gradually become a favorite with Vietnamese brides.

She has held successful events near Ban­qiao Station in New Tai­pei City, Xin­wuri Station in Tai­chung, Tai­pei Railway Station, and stations in other cities. For events in Kao­hsiung, she has enjoyed the support of the Kao­hsiung City Tourism Bureau. “The first event we held in Tai­chung’s ­ASEAN Square even provided babysitting for the children of the attendees,” she says.

Le points out that Tao­yuan is home to more than 100,000 foreign workers and more than 50,000 “new immigrants.” The Chinese language skills of Southeast-Asian spouses are often limited, and the government has an obligation to help them educate their children. She would also like to contribute her own efforts. She plans to turn part of her salon into a Vietnamese cultural center that exhibits objects commonly used in Vietnam, including the currency and household items, and displays stories of life at home. In this way visitors could come into closer contact with Vietnamese culture.