For those of you are unaware, many eastern countries still operate on the old lunar calendar of 12 months with 30 days in each of them. This leads to there being two new years celebrations here in Hanoi. The solar year celebration at the same time as ours, and the lunar new year celebration in February. The solar calendar year celebration is very minor, much like Christmas here. The lunar new year, or Tet, is very much the Christmas of Vietnam. It is very much a big deal.
I had chosen to stick around for Tet to see what it is all about. This year we had a week and a half off of work for Tet, so I could have gone nearly anywhere in Vietnam for a trip. However, having returned from Cambodia, and more recently Saigon, I figured that sticking around with my host-family wouldn't be a bad idea.
I should probably mention something about Saigon as I failed to do so in my last blog. Back in November, my host-mother mentioned that she wanted me to join her and her son in a trip down to Saigon, and of course I said yes. So four days after getting back from Cambodia, I was on a plane back south to Saigon. I must first off state that the day after we got there I contracted some sort of stomach flu, causing me to be in constant need of a bathroom. However, I worked hard to not let it slow me down. We spent most of the time going to pagodas. My host-mothers brother is a Buddhist monk, and so our home base while in Saigon was his home pagoda, a little hole in the wall in downtown Saigon.
I feel like I should say something about pagodas and temples here in Vietnam, because they are quite interesting. In the years since Vietnam began to shift away from communism, there has been a real boom in pagoda building. It seems like most of the pagodas I have visited are brand new, or are new structures on old pagoda sites. They all built like traditional pagodas, but now have wiring and power so that they can have flashy neon / Christmas lights around the Buddha (someone once referred to this as Disco Buddha, a term I quite like). While it's not on the same scale, it's almost like building classic European Cathedrals and is a multi-million dollar business here in Vietnam.
The pagoda we stayed near was not new, nor big, but was quite nice nonetheless. The big pagoda at Dai Lam however, is another story.
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| Dai Lam Pagoda |
Dai Lam Park is a Buddhist Amusement Park. Imagine a Disney World but except of fun happy characters there was the Buddha. That's what this was like. We first visited the Pagoda to pay respects to the Buddha, and then went on to visit things like a haunted house type thing, except instead of horrors that we would know, they were instead the classic horrors from Chinese literature. Another was a ride that takes you through the various levels of Hell before showing scenes of heaven. It was as bizarre as it sounds. I have a feeble knowledge of this sort of thing, and that's the only thing that prevented me from being incredibly confused. The one really cool thing was "Snow World." We entered this place and were issued light parkas, a pair of rubber boots, and some mitts, and then went through an air lock into a tiny toboggan hill. My host-brother had never seen snow before and was quite excited. Had I been feeling well I would have been quite happy to hang around there for a long time, but alas that was not the case.
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| My extended host-family (mother's side) and myself |
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| The Ride through Hell |
As for Saigon itself, I never really visited any of the museums or sites because we were busy visiting other things.
As for Tet, there is not a lot to say. Everything is closed and the tradition is to go and visit friends and family every day. You eat a lot and visit pagodas. There are lots of little traditions surrounding luck that happen at this time. Older people give younger people Ly Xi, or lucky money. You go to pagodas and donate lots of money to various saints, gods and the Buddha for luck, and the more temples you visit, the luckier you are. You can buy a fortune (mine states that I am to be very lucky this year), and also read a chart that tells you which stars you are under this year (I ended up with two very good ones, though I was told there aren't any bad stars, just good and excellent).
I would like to point out that I am just over the half way point for my trip. It feels like I have been here for a long time, and yet it also feels like the end is coming soon, even though the time is the same. There is still a lot coming up. The Gioi is going on a trip somewhere north up in the mountains in the next couple weeks, as well as a trip to the beach sometime in June. My parents are starting to establish dates for when they will be visiting, and I still have a holiday, courtesy of The Gioi, where I can go up to Sa Pa. It's going to be a busy 5 months or so.
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