Tet in Saigon

Tet loomed large.  Barely a month after my momentary panic in Thailand, when I suddenly realized that we would be traveling during the Christmas-New Year’s week in Australia’s favorite holiday destination with no advance reservations, it occurred to me to wonder when in the year Tet occurred.  What I found wasn’t promising: It was the entire month during which our visas were valid, and everything would be closed except transportation, which would have been fully booked six months in advance.  My initial excitement at being here to see the festival turned to concern as the web forums were unanimous: go elsewhere.  (The other thing all the postings shared was ignorance that the “Christmas, your birthday, and the 4^th of July rolled into one” quote came from Full Metal Jacket.  This would be the 49^th anniversary of the Tet offensive.)

Still, one RTW family I found online seemed to have a good time during the holiday a few years ago, and most importantly, didn’t starve.  Since we didn’t really have a choice anyway, I mapped out our month in more detail than usual, structured around being in Saigon for the holiday itself under the assumption that the biggest city would be most likely to have something open, and booked all of our train tickets.

The weeks before were a great time to be in Hanoi.  (I doubt there’s a bad time to be in Hanoi.)  The city was in the early stages of getting ready (think a week or two after thanksgiving), the night markets were doubled in size to accommodate all of the holiday preparations, yet everything else was business as usual, or perhaps a bit more festive.  Pop-up shops were selling lanterns, happy new year banners, and decorated red envelopes.  The tradition is that young people wish their elders good fortune or long life in the coming year and are rewarded with an envelope of money.  (It turns out that trick-or-treating is universal, though in places like Nepal it takes on a more extortionary edge.)

Ethan picking out some Tet decorations

We saw several people lighting fires in the gutters, which we assumed at first were a way to dispose of trash, and the warmth as we walked by was welcome during the cool, drizzly afternoons.  It took perhaps longer than it should have to realize that this was part of the celebration, as people were taking paper horses and fake money directly from their plastic packaging and putting them into the fires.  These are gifts to their ancestors, and modern versions include fancy cars, tailored shirts, motorcycles, and anything else of value, all in paper models.

A curbside gift to the Ancestors

The most obvious other early preparation was purchasing kumquat trees, heavily laden with fruit, which we saw zooming around the city precariously balanced on the backs of the motorbikes, not unlike a Christmas tree strapped to the roof.  And, of course, the special edition coke cans with Happy Tet scenes (but no polar bears).

This one made it home safely — not all kumquats are so lucky.

As the holiday itself drew closer, the more perishable items began to appear.  Flowers are a major part of the holiday.  Flower markets dominate the streets, and one street in each city is given over to several blocks of elaborate floral displays, often built around city landmarks or the new year’s zodiac – this year the Rooster – and prominently sponsored by the local corporations.  These flower streets are where everyone takes their annual Tet pictures, often dressed in their holiday best.  And I mean everyone.  The streets are completely mobbed.  Most surprising is that no one is wearing those ubiquitous Asian surgical masks, and almost no one makes the faux gangsta peace sign in front of their face.

And either because they are more perishable, or because we were moving south where they are more popular, the kumquat trees began to be replaced by apricot flower trees (which, in another echo from home, shed their blossoms right after the holiday all over the living room floor).

Tet itself is 3 days: the penultimate new years’ eve, new year’s eve, and the new year.  This is when we were told it would all shut down, and aside from kids banging of pots and pans as the year turned, even busy Ho Chi Minh city would be a ghost town, not a motorbike in sight.  They even recommended it as a good time to learn to drive, since the streets would be empty.

For the record, the internet is wrong.

It turned out that our hotel was at the edge of a very large neighborhood market stretched along the streets for blocks in every direction.  In this first day, it was packed.  The wares for sale spilled beyond the sidewalks and well into the streets; the motorbike traffic was compressed between, and further challenged by the fact that everyone was shopping from the seats of their bikes – not that there was any place to park.  Mountains of fruits, vegetables, herbs (especially herbs, which in Vietnam are their own food group), meat of all sizes and kinds, live fish in shallow pans splashing as you pass, a table of eyeballs, and specialty holiday treats like Banh Tet.  And plenty of street food, everywhere.

It’ll be a lot more crowded tomorrow

Okay, people were clearly busy getting ready – but the next day would surely be quieter.

Nope.  The dueling DIY karaoke performances started at 6, as usual.  I slipped out of the room and went to see if our go-to coffee place had opened yet, and found that the market had doubled in density.  The vendors, who were still sitting out by their produce late the night before, had slept on lawn chairs right on the street, settled in for the long haul.  Walking was impossible; you could only shuffle down the street surrounded by people and motorbikes trying to shop, move, and eat all at once, while the rolling food carts tried to push their way between.  Yesterday the main intersection was a scrum; today it was a single writhing mass of motorbikes draped in people and shopping bags.

The smell of fresh herbs and grilling meat, the blaring music, honking motorbikes, animated conversations in an unintelligible language, the baskets of vegetables, all the motion and commotion – this is my thing.  This is what pulls me back out into the world after sitting comfortably home for too long.  There’s a deep craving I have for being immersed in this kind of scene, and here it was, the Jahn’s Kitchen Sink version with all 30 scoops.

You haven’t seen everything until everything has seen you.

The market scene quieted through the day as people finished their preparations and switched to celebrations (except haircuts – the salons were busy well into the night).  Life in Saigon is lived on the streets; families crowded around plastic tables in front of their houses and businesses, talking, eating, drinking, and lighting sparklers.  The manager of our hotel, a woman in her 20’s, invited us to join her for a traditional midnight dinner.  She had spent days preparing the food, making the special leaf-wrapped stuffed sticky rice cakes that steam for two days, and following a youtube recipe (quite successfully) for Vietnamese kimchee.  In addition to feeding us, she’d had to cook for her departed ancestors.  They come for three days each year, and demand a fresh lunch and dinner each day, placed in front of the family shrine.  After three days of visiting relatives, everyone is tired, so they return to their realm for another year.

Setting out a hearty chicken breakfast for the Ancestors

We sat down to a holiday-worthy array of food on the sidewalk in front of the hotel along with her sister and brother in law and a few other friends and guests, drinking local beer and waiting for midnight.  The moment itself was fairly subdued, as the central government had cancelled the usual municipal fireworks displays this year (ostensibly so that the savings could be given to the poor, as there had been a few natural disasters earlier in the year).  My sense was that, as a family centered holiday, a few simple toasts somewhere around midnight is in tune with the spirit.

The midnight feast

When our host first invited us, I ran out to make a last-minute purchase of some red envelopes, in case there were any kids.  Luckily her sister brought her 4 year old, who accepted my envelope with a practiced hand.  (Her parents were more impressed that we had come prepared.)     More envelopes came out, and Ethan and Aaron suddenly got much more into the joy of the holiday (the money is meant to be spent frivolously by the children).   By around 3 the streets had quieted somewhat, (though there was still plenty of music playing), and the kids were tired enough to sleep (despite Ethan grabbing himself an energy drink out of the fridge that evening).  We went upstairs, hoping that the Karaoke would start a little later than usual the next morning, and thankful that everything would be closed on New Year’s Day itself.

Aaron goes to the bakery and learns the rewards of properly pronouncing “Chuc Mung Nam Moi!”

Some dragons wear Adidas, others prefer Nike

In the morning, there was no Karaoke.  But it wasn’t quiet.  From our room at the top floor of the hotel, one of the highest buildings in the neighborhood, we could hear the sounds of the streets regardless of which little back alley they were coming from.  This morning it was a lot of insistent drumming and gongs.  I pulled myself out of bed, grabbed Aaron, and ran downstairs in search of dragon dancers.  Except that when we reached the street the sound disappeared.  We wandered instead in search of breakfast, and as we passed an alley, there they were – just as loud, but screened by the maze like passages of the neighborhoods behind the main streets.

Big sister is too cool to dress up, but not too old to watch the show

“It’s coming right for us!”

We were told that Saigon’s Chinatown would have the most intricate holiday displays, so we caught a local bus heading to that district.   (The Chinese new year and Tet occur at the same time; several other Asian “lunar new years” are in different months.)  As with most of what we were told about Tet, this wasn’t quite true.  But the Temples, on this first day of the year, were packed.  Adherents have a brief window at the beginning of the year to make their offerings, resulting in a day-after-thanksgiving style rush at the temples, with dozens of entrepreneurs setting up ad-hoc motorbike parking lots right in the street, others selling incense around the temples, and a few selling caged birds (to be released, thereby fulfilling the mitzvah of giving life to something, though allegedly in reality the trauma of catch and release frequently kills them.)

A rare moment of quiet in a Chinatown temple (or, Even in the temples there’s graft)

The insides of the temples are a fog of incense.  Ceremonial oil and butter lamps are in front of each of dozens of shrines, continuously refilled with offerings from long lines of worshipers.  Larger incense coils are hung from the ceiling, regularly raining down ashes everywhere.  As throughout southeast Asia, the shrines themselves are backed by brightly colored LEDs, flashing and dancing in patterns to form halos and Buddhist swastikas, mixed with a blend of Confucian and Hindu images along with both Chinese and Tibetan Buddhas, and a few that bear more than a passing resemblance to the Virgin Mary.

The Fog of Prayer

Shrines must have looked very different before LEDs

But soon we would need dinner…