Celebrating Tết

On the 23rd day of the 12th month of the Vietnamese lunar calendar (4 days ago on 26 January), the Vietnamese prayed to the Kitchen God (Ông Táo) with offerings of sugarcanes, fruits and chicken, so that he can ascend to the heavens and make a favourable report of the family when he meets the Jade Emperor. Some of the prayer items are shown below:

Prayer Chicken

Mandarin Oranges

Due to the unforgiving cold weather, the peach blossoms (hoa đào) have suffered. (Read 'Cold ruins peach blossom harvest' here). So I can show you the rather unspectacular sight of a rather bald pink peach blossom tree. Apologies for the fuzzy image of the hoa đào flower up close, but you may be just able to make out how it looks from the flowers in the background of the picture on the right.

Pink peach blossom (hoa đào) tree

Close-up view of hoa đào

The Vietnamese government has declared that the period from 31 January to 7 February 2011 will be official holidays for Tết. Tết falls on 3 February, and coincides with the Chinese Lunar New Year this year.

Already the Vietnamese people are returning in droves to their home towns, leading to massive traffic jams everywhere. You can see motorcyclists with all kinds of bulky items on their bikes - pots of kumquat, hoa đào, large boxes, etc. Everyone is going back home to attend the important reunion dinner on the eve of Tết.

If you are travelling to Vietnam during this time, be prepared to pay expensive prices for food in upmarket restaurants. Most shops will be closed during this time. For 31st January and 1st February, banks will also keep some of the branches open for basic transactions.

Our next destinations will be Malaysia and Singapore. So stay tuned.

The Tết Celebrations have already begun

Tết is the most important festival in Vietnam. Also known by its longer name of Tết Nguyên Đán, it is a time for reunion dinners, ancestral worships, giving lì xì (lucky money), temple visiting, and uttering New Year greetings.

Typically, two to three weeks before Tết, businesses start to slow down, and bosses take the opportunity to throw lunches to thank their staff for their contributions over the past year, and to celebrate the upcoming Tết.

Bánh chưng is a common dish for any Tết celebration. It reminds me of the Chinese rice dumpling. But unlike the pyramidal-shaped Chinese rice dumplings with many variations in terms of flavours, it is rectangular in shape, and it is typically made of pork, bean fillings and sticky rice.

Another popular dish is Thịt Kho Nước Dừa, which is made of fatty pork stomach and medium boiled eggs stewed in a broth-like sauce made overnight of young coconut juice and nuoc mam.

Toasting one another is customary during such lunches. They will all join in a chorus of "Một, hai, ba, uống!" ("one, two, three, drink!"), and down their glasses of whisky or beer.

So, let's make a toast to Tết:

Một, hai, ba, uống!

Getting Great Bargains at Hanoi's Night Market

Without fail, a night market is set up on every Friday, Saturday and Sunday near the famous Dong Xuan market (Chợ Đồng Xuân) (see picture above). The present Dong Xuan market is reconstructed in the image of the old Dong Xuan market, which was almost totally gutted in a fire in 1994. You can find wholesalers and traders selling garments, household goods, fresh fruits and vegetables to stalls selling Vietnamese food.

The night market straddles 5 streets starting from Hàng Đào Street(Phố Hàng Đào), continuing along Hàng Ngang Street (Phố Hàng Ngang), Hàng Đường Street(Phố Hàng Đường), Đồng Xuân Street (Phố Đồng Xuân), and ending at Hàng Giấy Street (Phố Hàng Giấy).

You can get great bargains of bootlegged branded goods at fantastic prices...provided, of course, you know how to bargain.

Be prepared to be fleeced, if you don't bargain. Knowing a word or two of Vietnamese helps to soften the seller's resistance to reduce prices. There is no hard and fast rule, but a rule of thumb is to aim to achieve a discount of 30% to 40% off the initial quoted price.

Back off from aggressive bargaining, when the seller becomes visibly unhappy or testy. Your counteroffer has probably taken away too much of the profit margin, leaving little benefit to the seller in selling you the item(s).

At this time of the year when it approaches Christmas, and is not so far away from Tết (the Vietnamese New Year), it may be quite a sight to foreigners to see stalls displaying Christmas decorations for sale in one stall, and decorations for the Tết festival in an adjacent stall or across the street.
Besides festive season decorations, you can find leather bags, wallets, belts, shoes, undergarments, sports suits, clothes, handphone covers, books and movie DVDs being marketed in the night market stalls, as well as in the shops along these streets.