Nobody warned me that the New Year would get off to such an expensive start.
Over the past week, I've spent more on Choco Pies, sugary beverages, and assorted snack foods than I will (hopefully) spend in the rest of the year. I've also stuffed ungodly sums of money into shiny red envelopes, which are then distributed to people who have 'earned' it through friendship, helpfulness, or simple proximity. This is all done for the sake of Tet, which remains a mysterious and amorphous concept to me. I've asked at least a dozen people to describe various aspects of Tet - the food, the music, the traditions, even the exact dates. Each time I receive a slightly different answer. It is obviously an important event, yet nobody knows how to explain it. I feel like a child asking adults where babies come from.
Without a solid definition of Tet to help my understanding, I'm forced to rely on personal observations and secondhand anecdotes. This is admittedly an inexact science, though it can be quite interesting (like phrenology or dianetics).
The most striking evidence of Tet's imminence is the sudden proliferation of red in the city. Seemingly overnight, bright red Party banners are draped from every street light and sign post. There are also innumerable kiosks selling Vietnamese flags, lucky dreamcatchers, and every sort of hangable celebratory paraphernalia all in brilliant hues of red and gold.
Certain areas of the city are transformed into stunning carnivals of light. Near the great Opera House in District 1, a massive construction project has been underway for at least a week. Slowly but surely, the setting for a vast celebration is taking form. The gentle curves of bamboo cuts and circular traditional fishing boats create the illusion of an ancient Vietnamese village in the city center, contrasting sharply with the Gucci boutiques and high-end restaurants just across the street. The effect is impressive - the past born again into the present, with beverages and souvenirs available for purchase.
Closer to home, on the main artery of Nguyen Thi Minh Khai, a gorgeous art exhibition forms every night on the crowded sidewalks. People mill around and gawk at the brilliant apricot flowers, landscape paintings, and ceremonial doodads, all bathed in soft golden lights that fill me with intense impressions of grace, antiquity, peace and beauty. Until I nearly collide with the 70-year old woman in front of me, who is also captivated by the scene.
Which segues nicely into my next point: chiefly that during Tet the driving in Saigon is a hellish nightmare that would make the Dalai Lama tear his own hair out, if he had any left. At all hours of the day the streets are choked with motorbikes, even by the city's usual standards of congestion. Laden with gifts, food, and multiple passengers, the drivers are completely oblivious to their surroundings (and safety). And those carrying incredible burdens are the least of my concerns - on at least four occasions I have seen old men (barely sober enough to stand up) hop on their motorbikes and tear down the street, too hopelessly drunk to consider a helmet or the possible repercussions of their irresponsible actions.
The drunks aren't the only jolly ones. Many of the local vendors get into the spirit by arbitrarily raising their prices to cover the massive expenditures of such a lengthy and elaborate holiday. A few days ago I stopped to buy a cafe da from my neighborhood cart-barista. When I offered him the customary 10,000 dong, he informed me that the new price was 20,000 dong. When I asked for an explanation, he simply replied, "Tet." Fair enough, though that iced coffee tasted mighty sour (no small feat for a beverage that is roughly 70% pure sugar).
Those merchants not involved in gratuitous price gouging sometimes seem to disappear altogether. The friendly old woman who sells me fresh fruit in the morning has been AWOL for days, putting me in the uncomfortable position of having to find alternative sources of pineapple and, horror of horrors, cutting it myself. Other merchants are present in body but not spirit. When I stopped at the local mechanic to fix my horn (it hasn't worked for days, reducing me to screaming obscenities at the various taxis and motorbikes who nearly kill me every day), he cheerfully informed me through pantomime that he was too busy getting drunk with his friends to work on my bike. It was 11:00 in the morning.
From an expat's perspective, then, Tet can be visualized best as a gaily decorated wrecking ball that smashes apart one's comfortable daily routine while blasting ABBA's 'Happy New Year' from its regrettably potent speakers (why a wrecking ball would have speakers is unclear, but I needed to slip in a reference to that singularly ubiquitous and awful song).
I had experienced Lunar New Year twice before in Korea, where it is known as Seolnal. The Koreans also had red lanterns and fruit baskets and horrendous traffic. Having said that, there is no comparison with the scale and pervasive influence of Tet. It is, as Mark Twain once said, the difference between lightning and lightning bugs.
I am leaving Saigon tomorrow for the relative peace and serenity of Cambodia, surely the first time those words have been written. I will miss the eventual exodus of Saigon's population that I have been assured takes place every year during Tet. I'm still skeptical that the streets will ever be calm again. I will depart without any substantial understanding of the holiday, save for the confirmation that it is often more mystifying to know a little about something than nothing at all.
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