Tet

Please imagine hearing this song everywhere you go. Stores, on commercials, played on the piano at family gatherings, everywhere. Go ahead and listen while you read the rest. It’ll be like you’re in Viet Nam!

Today is the equivalent of New Year’s Eve. This week has definitely been a whirlwind of holiday activities. One night I went with my host family to Co Sa’s sister’s house for dinner for a meal with the everyone. I hadn’t met many of them before and was pleasantly surprised at how great they were. It probably helped that a lot of them speak English and were very purposeful in including me in conversations. Also there are a couple of people my age-ish in the family, so it wasn’t just me and little children. Always a nice change!

The next night all of Chu Hung’s family came over to our house for dinner. We’ve had a couple dinners like this in the past and I always end up exhausted. Family gatherings, when it isn’t your family or your language, tend to be overwhelming. But again, I was pleasantly surprised!! His mom is my favorite; she speaks no English at all and yet talks to me the most. We always end up sitting together when it’s actually time to eat and she makes sure I know how to eat things. I realize that sounds silly, but you’d be surprised how often I have no idea what sauce goes with what, what order to eat in, or some other culturally defined food fact. She has this endearing way of hitting me when she wants to tell me something. She’s just great. Both before and after the meal I was able to find ways to help cook dinner and also to participate in helping clean, which again sounds like a silly accomplishment but when the options are run around with the kids, sit and chat in Vietnamese, or sit with the men while they drink, finding something productive to actually do is a relief. Although, on this particular evening I did feel really good about my attempts at Vietnamese. In the end I sat down with the women and chatted for a while and I think I understood a good amount! If someone had asked me to translate I would have no idea what actual words they were saying, but I could follow and when people asked me questions I could answer correctly. That is, until I started to get really tired at about 9:30 and suddenly couldn’t understand any more. By 10 I made my escape and went up to bed, even though at least half the guests were still there. It’s a good think I didn’t wait for everyone to leave, they were all still here the next morning!

A lot of people had work and school off Thursday and Friday (as well as most of next week) so even though I technically had work Thursday, instead I spent the morning with the neighbor girl and some of her friends downtown. I have this feeling it was mostly to introduce that she has a foreigner friend and for them all to practice English. It turned out to be three 14 year olds, their old English teacher, and me. The girls basically just talked to themselves and giggled the whole time, but the teacher was great! She was about my age and just moved back from studying in New Zealand. She and I had a great time chatting all morning!

Another thing that happens this week is cleaning and repairing things like crazy. Tet serves as kind of a motivation for spring cleaning and they take it very seriously. Two rooms even got brand new furniture. New flowers have appeared everywhere. Storage rooms have been organized. Everything has been dusted and dusted again. The house is ready to be “presented” to people. Which is kind of funny b/c my family is going to the beach on vacation so people aren’t necessarily going to be coming over here.

Rumor has it that tonight we won’t sleep at all! We are heading downtown to a firework show and to eat ice cream and celebrate until 12. Then afterwards we will go to the Pagoda to make our offerings for the year for health and happiness and good luck. My family is not religious at all, but they go once a year, mostly just because that is what you do. Last night I saw a bag of cookies out and I figured, it’s the holidays, I’m sure I can eat one! So I asked and was actually told no because it would be unlucky. Because they are Tet cookies, first you must make your offerings. So many traditions!

Speaking of making offerings, last night all night there was a rooster ...what word do you use for the rooster noise? Crying? Crowing? Squawking? eh, I don’t know... there aren’t normally roosters in my part of town. So this morning I asked Co Sa about him. Turns out he won’t be making noise for long because he is the offering for tonight. That family is supposedly very pious for having a rooster, we are “only” offering a fish.

Tomorrow, the first day of the New Year, will be spent visiting family I think. Basically its just wishing everyone a happy new year and eating a lot from what I gather. Then in the evening we’re off for Cambodia for the week!! I think its going to be an exhausting week after an exhausting weekend, but I also think it’s going to be FANTASTIC!

I’m sure there is lots more I could tell you about Tet, but this seems long enough already. Basically, it feels a lot like December at home. That atmosphere around the city is just different. I love it! I love all holidays so I’ll take any chance to add more to my list :)