Throughout our time to-date in SE Asia we have been privy to one of the most exciting times of the year, the month long preparation and eventual celebration of the Chinese New Year. Every city we have visited has their own unique Chinese influence, thus creating a fun and festive atmosphere for the past month. The expectation of the New Year celebrations built up like a steam pipe about to burst and picking a location to ring in the New Year was high on our to-do list. After consultation with various books, locals and previous participants, we settled on Vietnam to kick off TET as they call it in Vietnam.
We arrived in Hoi Chi Min City, or "still Saigon" as the locals counseled, just in time to help celebrate. Fortunately, one of ML's family friends was in-town to help us point us in the right direction. The spot they chose was the Hotel Rex rooftop to watch the action unfold on stage, in the streets and over the city skyline.
Having locals guides was a big help and during the New Years Celebrations we learned about a few of the local traditions. First, Vietnam celebrates to a different lunar calendar. For instance, in Vietnam it is the Year of the Cat and else where it is the Year of the Rabbit.
Second, there are a number of sacred traditions around the New Year, all with the expressed goal of bringing "Luck and Prosperity" for the New Year. We had two favorites, the first involved inviting a local dancing troupe to your place of business to preform the Lion Dance (complete with ensemble of ear splitting drummers) to bring you "Good Luck and Prosperity". The second tradition was centered around the home and again to bring "Good Luck and Prosperity" for the new year, a person of great luck, success and prosperity should be the first to cross your threshold (FYI, if it turns out to be a bad year that person is also blamed and never asked back). After hearing about AB's success in real estate, his luck to meet ML and his prosperity in the looks department, he was immediately requested to be a bearer of Good Luck for the new year. However, mere moments before the big event, a question was asked about AB's current job, having none, he was immediately dismissed in favor of more qualified (ie. employed) candidates.
A big part of the TET celebration involves going to temple to pray for "Luck and Prosperity" in the new year.We followed suit and went to the Jade Dragon Temple to burn incense sticks at various alters with thoughts of the great year ahead. Unfortunately, the incense stick also provided enough smoke to cause hallucinations. Finally, Tet is also a great time of year to gamble, which the Vietnamese do with gusto, playing for "Lucky Money" to start the new year, even the moms and kids get in on the action.
After the New Year we took some time to explore the city. Saigon is large, fast paced (borderline frantic) and a bit dirty growing upwards from its classic Chinese and French Colonial architecture with modern glass buildings (the newest one has a helipad, which apparently doesn't get used but everyone will tell you about).
It was wonderfully decorated for the New Year with flowers, tons of lights and best of all, very little traffic due to most people leaving the cities to visit their families in the countryside over Tet.
It is definitely a city on the move and as one of the locals pointed out, "You can smell the money," but at the same time there is a visible duality between the classes. On one corner we witnessed a Rolls Royce waiting at a light, with a simple poor farmer selling his harvest for mere pennies. Also, they are continuously cleaning, but the city stays constantly dirty. We were informed this is due to a lack of education at a young age to revere public space and so they are constantly littering the streets (love the little guy, peeing in the streets below).
Here is a lesson learned for all those paying attention, our guidebooks suggested only about 20% of busineses close over Tet, however we discovered only 20% of business (ie hotels and tourist spots) were actually open. So we spent most of our time in the city, exploring the city and playing endless games of Frogger with motorbikes who hurtle headlong down every street with little regard for pedestrians and seemingly their own lives.
Actually having a relatively quiet city for a few days was a welcome respite allowing us to enjoy some of the luxuries of Saigon including an hour and half massage complete with 80 pound Vietnamese woman walking all over your back for $7. Awesome food including Pho, Chinese BBQ & Hotpot and our new go-to favorite dish after a night of drinking, duck noodle soup (FYI, we later found out our duck noodle soup place was also the favorite location for picking up "evening companions"). Also an important note, beers in Vietnam cost about $.50, yes I said 50 cents (after writing that a second time we just decided to get a beer).
In addition to tackling all the important culinary experiences of the city, we saw all the cultural sites, which to us seems right out of our high school text books, including Reunification Palace, the War Remnants Museum and a lot of historical sites relating to the "American" War.
Finally, because we had so much downtime we were able to make some new friends in Saigon. The first was our friendly in-keeper, who is a famous Vietnamese painter and poet. He was a great host and invited us in to celebrate a traditional TET meal with his family and friends including new year Sticky Rice, breast milk fruit (literal translation) and Cognac (at 10am). Additionally, we stumbled upon a group of very friendly Aussies with whom we spent a few nights partying. Unfortunately, no photographic evidence exists of said friends, except one of the Roos had a Cuban girlfriend, Lissette, who was the lead signer in a Latin band, Warapo. We spent a night with them drinking Sangria and perfecting our salsa skills.
We arrived in Hoi Chi Min City, or "still Saigon" as the locals counseled, just in time to help celebrate. Fortunately, one of ML's family friends was in-town to help us point us in the right direction. The spot they chose was the Hotel Rex rooftop to watch the action unfold on stage, in the streets and over the city skyline.
Having locals guides was a big help and during the New Years Celebrations we learned about a few of the local traditions. First, Vietnam celebrates to a different lunar calendar. For instance, in Vietnam it is the Year of the Cat and else where it is the Year of the Rabbit.
Second, there are a number of sacred traditions around the New Year, all with the expressed goal of bringing "Luck and Prosperity" for the New Year. We had two favorites, the first involved inviting a local dancing troupe to your place of business to preform the Lion Dance (complete with ensemble of ear splitting drummers) to bring you "Good Luck and Prosperity". The second tradition was centered around the home and again to bring "Good Luck and Prosperity" for the new year, a person of great luck, success and prosperity should be the first to cross your threshold (FYI, if it turns out to be a bad year that person is also blamed and never asked back). After hearing about AB's success in real estate, his luck to meet ML and his prosperity in the looks department, he was immediately requested to be a bearer of Good Luck for the new year. However, mere moments before the big event, a question was asked about AB's current job, having none, he was immediately dismissed in favor of more qualified (ie. employed) candidates.
A big part of the TET celebration involves going to temple to pray for "Luck and Prosperity" in the new year.We followed suit and went to the Jade Dragon Temple to burn incense sticks at various alters with thoughts of the great year ahead. Unfortunately, the incense stick also provided enough smoke to cause hallucinations. Finally, Tet is also a great time of year to gamble, which the Vietnamese do with gusto, playing for "Lucky Money" to start the new year, even the moms and kids get in on the action.
After the New Year we took some time to explore the city. Saigon is large, fast paced (borderline frantic) and a bit dirty growing upwards from its classic Chinese and French Colonial architecture with modern glass buildings (the newest one has a helipad, which apparently doesn't get used but everyone will tell you about).
It was wonderfully decorated for the New Year with flowers, tons of lights and best of all, very little traffic due to most people leaving the cities to visit their families in the countryside over Tet.
It is definitely a city on the move and as one of the locals pointed out, "You can smell the money," but at the same time there is a visible duality between the classes. On one corner we witnessed a Rolls Royce waiting at a light, with a simple poor farmer selling his harvest for mere pennies. Also, they are continuously cleaning, but the city stays constantly dirty. We were informed this is due to a lack of education at a young age to revere public space and so they are constantly littering the streets (love the little guy, peeing in the streets below).
Here is a lesson learned for all those paying attention, our guidebooks suggested only about 20% of busineses close over Tet, however we discovered only 20% of business (ie hotels and tourist spots) were actually open. So we spent most of our time in the city, exploring the city and playing endless games of Frogger with motorbikes who hurtle headlong down every street with little regard for pedestrians and seemingly their own lives.
Actually having a relatively quiet city for a few days was a welcome respite allowing us to enjoy some of the luxuries of Saigon including an hour and half massage complete with 80 pound Vietnamese woman walking all over your back for $7. Awesome food including Pho, Chinese BBQ & Hotpot and our new go-to favorite dish after a night of drinking, duck noodle soup (FYI, we later found out our duck noodle soup place was also the favorite location for picking up "evening companions"). Also an important note, beers in Vietnam cost about $.50, yes I said 50 cents (after writing that a second time we just decided to get a beer).
In addition to tackling all the important culinary experiences of the city, we saw all the cultural sites, which to us seems right out of our high school text books, including Reunification Palace, the War Remnants Museum and a lot of historical sites relating to the "American" War.
Finally, because we had so much downtime we were able to make some new friends in Saigon. The first was our friendly in-keeper, who is a famous Vietnamese painter and poet. He was a great host and invited us in to celebrate a traditional TET meal with his family and friends including new year Sticky Rice, breast milk fruit (literal translation) and Cognac (at 10am). Additionally, we stumbled upon a group of very friendly Aussies with whom we spent a few nights partying. Unfortunately, no photographic evidence exists of said friends, except one of the Roos had a Cuban girlfriend, Lissette, who was the lead signer in a Latin band, Warapo. We spent a night with them drinking Sangria and perfecting our salsa skills.
No comments:
Post a Comment