Chúc mừng năm mới!

Happy Year of the Snake! In Vietnam this is known as Tết holiday, the most important holiday of the year. For many Vietnamese, these three days are the only time they get to go back to visit their home town. The whirlwind of energy in the city in anticipation of the holiday was an amazing thing to experience. Shops were full of people and shelves were looking quite bare. I spent my time trying to figure out all the customs so that I didn't overly embarrass myself -- which was all for naught since I spent the morning of the second day of Tết in the worse state of embarrassment possible (yes more on that in a few). Anyways, I acquired some red envelopes for lucky money, given to young people (like in Japan!), bought gifts for Hao's family and other friends and got myself new clothing for the occasion!


My first day of Tết was spent in Thanh Tien village with Hao and her family. Her three sisters came home for the occasion, two from the pagoda where they live and the other with her husband and baby. Unsurprisingly, as with any good holiday, a lot of the day was spent preparing and eating food! We also went to the village cemetery to visit the graves of Hao's family in the morning. The afternoon was spent touring the village, visiting different family members. At each house we were offered tea and a multi-compartement box filled with candies, ginger sweets, and roasted watermelon seeds (what a discovery! These things are actually really yummy!).

Hao and her younger sister lighting incense as an offering

Thanh Tien cemetery

Hao and her grandmother, she was a cheeky one!

My second day of Tết started with my doing a favor for my friend Minh. He had asked me a couple days previously if I was interested in doing a quick interview for a friend of his doing a documentary about foreigner's view of Tết holiday. He said that they were also very interested in visiting Thanh Tien and seeing the work that Rose was doing there to promote paper flowers. I imagined this to be a low-key interview followed by a paper flower making demonstration, which would be good exposure for Rose and the work of Thanh Tien village. The whole thing was scary but manageable so I agreed. The day before the shoot, I learned that this had turned into a national program and that they wanted me to dress in traditional Vietnamese attire, which would be provided by the TV station. Ok, a bit more scary, but it's too late to back out now.

The day of: I try to fit into the clothing provided, nope, that zipper is not going to fit over my belly! I've got thighs after all! The TV woman insists and says that the front of the dress with hide the less than perfect look of the pants. Given no choice, I agree and then proceed out into the unknown. Completely unbeknownst to my friend Minh, he was now going to be on screen with me! Oh and we were no longer going to Thanh Tien at all! Instead we were brought to the biggest pagoda in Hue and were paraded around doing various tasks. The whole time I was simply praying that I wasn't going to burst out of the pants! After that we were brought to the Citadel, the main tourist attraction in Hue. Here our task became harder and even more embarrassing: find a tourist and ask them what they thought of Tết holiday! Not just any tourist either, the TV woman wanted them to be foreign looking, old, and in a group. (I think she was pretty disappointed when I turned up that morning looking way too Asian and young!) Minh and I tried to keep eachothers spirits up, and I tried to appreciate seeing the Citadel for the first time. Still, most my attention was on my pants and on not tripping over the long dress (the locals thought that my flip flops with the fancy clothing was hilarious). Let's just say that I was happy to change back into my "street clothing" and that it is not confirmed, show biz is definitely not my calling!

I spent the third day of Tết once more with Hao's family, and learned how to make bánh ram. I will post very soon about all the types of bánh that I've encountered here! And voilà my Tết experience! Chúc mừng năm mới!