I'd rather not follow a holiday that falls on this mysterious 14th day of February. I don't need a calendar to remind me to celebrate those whom I love, and I sure as hell don't like sharing a holiday at a sushi bar with the one person I want to be with and shoulder to shoulder with 200 strangers. Unless I'm packed into a blues club, or standing on the banks of an ancient lake with underneath the booming fireworks; and I don't even have to be that close because I can see over everybody! Imagine trying to order sushi through a bunch of giants!... OK, so maybe I'm heartbroken I can't give my girl flowers. Anyways, V-day and the first day of the Vietnamese lunar new year, the Tet, were on the same day this year. And as the days leading up to the moon coming 'round, the city becomes more frantic than ever. Most people prepare to leave to the country side, to the cities or villages that their elders reside in. A few will stay back in Hanoi. I was experiencing big transformations, usually in terms of uncomfortableness as everything that it already crazy in this city gets 10 times crazier. Time to prepare!
Amidst roadside trash, motorbike haze, ninja-esque face masked pedestrians walk not so ninja-esque down the middle of highways. Yet I can barely make out sprinkles of pinks and yellows can be seen dotting the distance. Motorbikes appear with two potted kumquat trees hanging over both sides of the seat, dwarfing the driver (who doesn't seems to be praying for his life as much as I am) focused on the road in front of him. Seriously, take some time to imagine that. I bike (bicycle this time!!!) through the standstill traffic, past a few fallen quat-pots and a nose-to-nose stare down between the drivers. Honestly, this is the worst traffic experience yet for me. I find my way to the giant flower market towards the northern part of Ha Noi. It sits below the main road and stretches on and back for hundreds of meters. The new year is marked as the welcoming of the spring time so what better to represent that with beautiful bouquets and potted peach blossoms (sorry, there's a lot more to describe but my botanical terminology is just about as advanced as my Vietnamese). I stand perched at the top of a slope and look down into the swarm. There must be some technique to shorting through all the selection. Thousands of people stick their faces into the pedals or grope at the quat fruits as though they were giving it a thorough medical exam (not sure why I chose that analogy, but it's what came to mind). They must pick the exact right offerings to their ancestors whom centuries before, in this very season, did the same for their ancestors. All for lucky, for prosperity, for family. I head into the throng. It's one the rare times that I walk into crowds relatively unnoticed and it's nice to not carry the novelty of a dancing monkey all the time (don't get me wrong, you all know how much I love monkeys). Just as well, what would I do with all of these beautiful yet mysterious items of offering? The last days before
Tet bring in a lot of money to shop owners. I learn this the hard way. DO NOT bargin with people on or near the Tet. And my barganing has gotten pretty good. I fire a charming half-Jewish-half-Han Solo style grin at a flower vendor, the smile that says: "hey look at me, I'm the monkey trying to speak Vietnamese. Laugh at me with your friends for only a 15% discount!". She give's me a fierce one, a look that could freeze me in carbonite (I had to!!!) and I quickly walk away, tail between my monkey legs.An then the day of Tet comes (the 14th) and like all those crappy science-fiction movies... the city completely shuts down. Now, were talking a city of maybe 8 million people. And most of my city dwelling remains towards the central areas, the heavily commercial districts. And even here it's still a ghost town. Dead, literally overnight... But I have no fear. I've gathered supplies. I prepared for my temporary extinction from all civilization...
and, as usual, go over the top:
10 lbs of produce
10 lbs of rice
5 cans of tuna fish
15 450ml bottles of local beer (it's only 4.2%!)
20 liters of water
1 bottle of fish sauce (just in case I run out of toothpaste)
300 grams of coffee
10 illegally (ehem) pirated DVDs
Enough money to get me through the fallout until the ATMs are restocked (this really dose happen)
Except for a sawed-off shot gun I'm ready for complete hibernation. While the spirits of my neighbors ancestors wander the desolate graveyard of the city above (OK, I'm not really underground...) I can stay warm with some homemade mexican food and a few seasons of Arrested Development. I hunker down by candlelight (I'm lying again) and make final preparations: soaking enough black beans for huevos ranceros for a week, check!. Note for my loved ones in case I fall into a timewarp. check! My cell phones rings... It could be a decoy, but I answer it anyways. It's my firend, Lien, and she wants to invite me over for a Tet dinner with her family. Looks like I got a bit too dramatic, but I pack some garlic and holy water just in case...
No joke, this city is really much more of a joy to drive in during the festival week. I get some long needed experience with my motorbike, and with only 10% of the usual traffic this is really enjoyable. I've done quite decently at navigating the city on my bicycle and have a pretty good mental-map of where I need to be going. I don't even really use a map anymore! I arrive at Lien's house at 6pm and offer them (and I presume their ancestors) a bottle of French wine. Just as I walk inside I see the the table is being set, sans the table, at my feet. It is customary to eat sitting cross legged on the floor so as to not be seated above anybody else. Whatever the reason, this will give my thighs some serious grief. I am introduced to Lien's mother and father and her sister and brother-in-law. Aside from numerous akward bows, a mumbled and mangled "happy new year" in Vietnamese, and maybe a monkey smile or two, there's not much more I can do to show the utmost appreciation for this unique experience. We sit to eat. My knees creak so loud I almost excuse myself. I check out the spread. Most of it looks very unfamiliar and this is really exciting for me. I'm thinking that I may never get to try some of these foods again, although there's a plate over there that looks an awful lot like just a heap of boiled chicken organs so I'll stay away from that. Lien explains to me (aside from her and two friend of ours, Minh and Hung, who have also joined the celebration, no one else speaks English) that it's polite to take morsels of food from the community plate with your own chopsticks and place them in the bowl of another. No problem, I give her a fried spring roll and Minh some pickled bok choy. Lien's mom, probably noticing my stare down with the chicken, gives me a kidney with only the sweetest of smiles. (Dance Monkey Dance!). Lien's father keeps pouring the men at the "table" little shots of Johnnie Walker and is always content in leading the cheers. As the feast commences, father starts telling stories, about political books he's written and his newspaper articles. About how he drove a jeep through a raining of bullets from an American aerial raid. He does this all the time, Lien tells me how proud her father is. Shit, I feel proud that I get to hear his stories too, and lucky that he's around to tell them. Oh wait, time for another cheers! Seriously we probably do this 15 times throughout the meal. Which means that I've butchered "Happy New Year" about 15 times as well. No matter, it's with laughs and smiles, two things that there never seems to be a shortage of around here.So days latter, the celebrations still rage on, although mostly unknown to tourists like me, whom either take advantage of the once in a year tranquility of a city or loose their minds in boredom (I've fallen victim to both). I cruise the city at night, drive by neon glistening lakes under the LED-lite inferno from the shoreline trees. I push through the hordes poeple gathered in the courtyards of the pagodas. I walk unnoticed up to the giant furnaces where hundreds of people take turns burning paper money and incense, creating a mixture of the most noxious fumes and sweetest smoke. Palms clasped up to their lips they rock with mini bows towards the flames and the Buddha statues, praying for the new year to bring them, well, goods things I'm guessing. I stroll freely along the grey curbs and sidewalks, once unworkable due to the endless lines of parked motorbikes, now strewn with wilting flowers and snapped cherry blossoms. Half burned monopoly sized Ben Franklin's sliding over the ground in the cold wind. I think about what the Tiger has in store for me this year, and what the Water Buffalo brought me last year. I think about how lonely I am in this city and I think about how lucky I am to have friends like Lien and Minh to create once-in-a-lifetime moments with... I reminisce about the past and wonder about the future...
I figure and good Tet holiday should be spent listening to some live rock and roll. I find out about a club called The Blues Society and go check out the scene. I push into the packed bar, the band in the middle of a solid rendition of "Susie Q". And get this: the drummer was only eight years old! There were also some veteran rockers there and supposedly I was witness to a set by an (if not THE) original Vietnamese
and now it's today...
In summery, I must say I drastically over preparred in terms of food; If anyone can find a bowl of pho it's gonna be me, and my keen senses have found a few stalls! I've steered a few Tet-eyed tourist their way, feeling everyday that I have become just a bit more apart of this beast of a city. They thank me and ask if I know anything about what this "celebration" is all about. I tell them I know that deep inside many local dwellings, the occult gathering of feasting and drinking is never very far away. And it's all about Zeppelin worship too.
