If you ever attended a wedding or festival in Vietnam you will have seen it is offered to guests. In the past when asking for a girl’s hand in marriage, the suitor would present the girl’s family with betel leaves and nuts to show that he is serious about the marriage. This was even an official law under the Le Dynasty (the 15th century).
Betel and areca are also offered to ease the sadness of a grieving family at a funeral as well as laid upon ancestral altars.
A quid of betel composes of sweet areca, spicy betel leaf, bitter chay root and acrid lime. Aesthetically speaking, it’s said the perfect betel should be presented in the shape of a phoenix’s wing.
In folk songs, betel often symbolises passionate and sincere love. The song La Trau Xanh (The green betel leaf) by Vien Chau tells of an unrequited love-affair between a young woman who sells betel and areca and a rich man from her village.
Sitting by the village’s dyke, the couple promises to love each other forever regardless of how much the man’s family disapproves.
“I promise you my deep love, which is forever likened to the mixture of a betel quid and a sweet areca,” the young man says. “I am not afraid of the golden sunlight withering my fresh leaves, but I am afraid of you, my darling, waiting for me in anxiety and sadness,” his lover replies.
But bound by a sense of duty to his family, in the end the man marries another woman from a rich family and standing by the dyke road the spurned girl looks down at the fresh betel and arecas which have withered and dried.
Pham Thi Mai sells betel and areca in Hanoi’s suburbs. Now 80 years old she claims she first started this career when she got married off at the age of 12.
“My husband’s family has engaged in trading betel and areca for six generations,” the old woman says. “Betel and areca also have ups and downs just like a human life. Those who sell betel and areca are required to be of great charm. They have to know the different types for each different occasion.”
Another vendor, 53-year-old Dao Thi My, from Hung Yen province, sells quids of phoenix’s wing betel at Bac Qua market. She says one of the best times of year for these women is during wedding season when the price of areca doubles.
“A selection of a nice-looking bunch of arecas is not hard to find but not everyone is a connoisseur,” says My. “For special events such as an engagement ceremony or a wedding party a certain kind of areca, which has straight tassels is needed. If you are not a connoisseur, you end up with false tassels which have been glued on!”
“If you want to keep it fresh, you should put it into lime water,” another betel-seller, 75-year-old Nguyen Thi Vuong tells a customer.
She says these days she always has to instruct buyers how to arrange the products on the plates for weddings and engagement parties. Her favourite time of year is before Tet holidays when each family rushes to the market to buy betel but nobody bothers to bargain.
Chewing a piece of betel, Vuong says she has sold betel and areca for nearly 60 years. While she is proud of this heritage, her life has not been easy. She doesn’t earn enough money to rent a fixed place in the market. So the septuagenarian is forced to play cat and mouse with the market security.
“We always have to watch out for the market security men who try to drive us off,” she says.
I tell her that her betel and areca look very beautiful but she grumbles, “Before at weddings you’d have thousands of arecas and betel leaves, but now people only buy 100 to 200 arecas.”
When Pham Thi Mai smiles her set of blackened teeth emerge triumphantly. But she also complains that today people are more interested in assorted confectionery and soft drinks at festivals. Betel and areca are only used as a symbolic gesture.
“When it is not bought for weddings or funerals anymore, there will be no one trading it,” she says with a sad smile.