New Year's is a big, big deal in Vietnam. It's known as Tet, and the celebrations go on for a good week, at least. Traditionally, Tet is a time when families welcome back the spirits of their departed ancestors by putting goodies like fruit, rice wine, and sticky rice "cakes" out on the family altar. They send them off after a few days by burning paper money (which the spirits presumably take back to spend in the afterlife). In the meantime there are fireworks and lots of visiting of relatives and friends.
We're not gonna lie--there are some fairly annoying aspects of Tet. We find that kids are given a long break from school and no one really knows what to do with them. Packs of middle schoolers roam the streets with airsoft guns shooting bystanders who catch their eye (including foreign teachers who happen to be riding their bikes around town at the wrong time). Happy New Year to you too, kids. People also tend to drive their motorbikes with an extra dose of crazy thrown in at this time of year and we hear ambulance sirens with sad regularity.One of my favorite things so far about Tet, though, are the colors. Vietnam is normally a colorful country (in many ways) and Tet is the colorfullest time of year, to coin a new word. Yellow and red are the main ones, but it seems that, so long as it's bright it's all right. Here are some recent pictures with brief explanations for you.
This is the cay may--a special kind of tree that blooms at Tet. I think they're rather expensive, though, so they're much less common than these flowers...
...which lined one of the main streets in town for a good mile on both sides, right up until New Year's Day, when they all mysteriously disappeared.
Flags are plentiful. It helps, I suppose, that red and yellow are big Tet colors.
There's a Children's Park with rides and playground and such right across the street from the University that's usually fairly mellow and quiet. Not during Tet, though. Balloons are the big thing.
My attempt at a cool shot.
It seems that Wal-Mart doesn't have a worldwide monopoly on silly oversized inflatable holiday characters.
All of the markets close down for three days or so during Tet, so everyone does their holiday shopping the day or two beforehand. Crazier than usual.
Visiting graves, cleaning them up, burning incense...all part of the package for most people.
Of course, the cows continue to do their part in keeping the grass trimmed.
Prettier than any firework, balloon or massive inflatable creature--in my humble opinion.
