Chúc Mừng Năm Mới!

The Lunar New Year fell on Valentine's Day this year. We were given the week before and the week after as a holiday from school for this, the Vietnamese Tết Holiday. It is the biggest holiday of the year and the tradition is that everyone goes to their hometown to celebrate with their family.

For weeks, everyone asked me if I was going home to America to celebrate Tết. I think if they know people in America, they are Vietnamese and come home to Vietnam to celebrate, so surely I would need to go home to be with my family. It didn't seem to occur to anyone that I might not normally celebrate this.

Mom and Gwynn, a former college roommate from PC, came to Vietnam to celebrate my two week vacation with me.
I'm sure that I haven't explained enough in the past about how well the Vietnamese decorate for holidays, but it is unbelievable. Imaculate. Detailed. Beautiful. This picture, a terrible example, was just the beginning.
The main symbol that I saw was the Mai tree, covered in it's bright yellow blossoms. Even beofre the actual trees began to bloom, shops all over our city began gluing the fake flowers to windows, doors, walls, everything. Gold and Red, the colors of the Vietnamese flag, and symbols of wealth and prosperity, were everywhere as flowers and on banners.

Chúc Mừng :"congratualtions"
Năm: "year"
Mới: "fresh"

There is a lot of Chinese influence in Vietnam and I live very near the "China town" of HCMC. So, I'm honestly not sure what is Chinese and what is Vietnamese. I saw a lot of the dragon costumes in Chinatown, but around the new year, I could hear a lot of the drums. When we went to th beach, we stumbled upon a dance for the new year.

There were two boys in every Dragon costume and I don't think I captured it on video, but they did some amazing jumping. They would have to practice forever to be so coordinated together. This video is of the dragon climbing to the top of the pole and letting down a New Year banner. The New Year celebration was awesome. And this was one of my favorite things.