Deeply in Tet

I don't think I left my apartment on Lunar New Year's Day. I had been led by a number of knowledgeable(-sounding) people to expect a ghost town out there. Besides, the weather was cold and I had all that stockpiled food. Thanh had brought me a beautiful peach blossom branch, Nga had given me a nice little kumquat tree, and Thu had come a long way across town to give me a heavy bag containing Vietnamese fruits, a bottle of Da Lat wine, and some traditional Tet food she had cooked herself. Plus, 'Babe' was on the movie channel. Remember, too, I had been drinking wine and vodka until 3:00am the night before.

The second day of Tet arrived and I recalled an invitation to eat lunch at Imran's house. Imran is my CELTA colleague from Bangladesh, the only CELTA colleague who didn't leave Hanoi for Tet. He lives with his wife Amy and baby daughter Hannah in a beautiful big house near the Red River (Song Hong), the river in whose flood plain Hanoi is built. After a delicious lunch and the most extended conversation in English I've enjoyed in several months, we took ourselves for a walk along the river, which is at low water this time of year. It was a mild day, almost sunny, and when we walked down into the dry portion of the river bed, to my surprise the city seemed to disappear. The area between Imran's neighborhood and the river is still being farmed, with small plots given over to vegetables for the market—or kumquat trees. It has a pleasantly rural feeling and I envied Imran's easy access to running trails flanked by miniature fields and tiny orchards instead of exhaust-spewing buses and herds of tourists.

Speaking of herds, there were three or four water buffalo that had been tethered at intervals along the river bank by some farmer taking a few hours off to enjoy his Tet. One buffalo was bawling in a distressed fashion. When we got closer we saw that his rope, strung through his nostrils in the usual fashion, had gotten wrapped around a low bush and he was kneeling with his nose a foot from the bush, unable to stand up or get himself free. After a short struggle, during which he looked as nervous as I felt, I was able to untangle his rope so he could move again. The first thing he did was resume eating grass and walking slowly around and around the troublesome bush. I saw it was only a short-lived freedom I had given him, but it still must count as a good deed worth some good karma points, I figure, this new year being the Year of the Water Buffalo and all.

On the third day of Tet I was once again an honored dinner guest at the house of the father of my teacher Thu. Most Vietnamese follow the custom (now gaining popularity among Americans) of removing their shoes/sandals at the front door and slipping on house slippers/sandals so that street schmutz doesn't get tracked onto the dining room table/floormat. I'm experienced enough now to have brought my own house sandals to Thu's, but not experienced enough to remove them before sitting down to dinner. Make a note: if you sit cross-legged on a floor for any length of time, you don't want to have on your feet anything harder than a pair of socks.

At this point I have a sad confession to make. Much as I'd like to say I'm in Anthony Bourdain's league when it comes to dauntless appreciation of new foods, the truth is that even after decades of steady eating, my palate, stomach and gag reflex are still pretty much those of your average sheltered, white, American, middle-class kid raised on PB&J sandwiches, potato chips, and Kool-Aid. Although I did my best for about 30 minutes to chew, swallow, and even savor every delicacy placed in my bowl by my generous hosts, in the end the ugly American in me won out. After eating several crunchy black pork colons and two items that looked (and tasted) like strips of gristle tied in a granny knot around an Irishman's knuckle, I finally admitted out loud to my gracious hosts that I didn't really care for those dishes, just so I wouldn't have to eat any more of them.

I pedaled my bicycle back home through a light rain and light traffic. Tet has brought a brief respite from the motorized chaos of the past few weeks. The predictions I'd heard of a total shutdown in city commerce, though, were exaggerated. I've discovered that many of my favorite restaurants stayed open every day of Tet, as did many other businesses that cater to visiting tourists. Even on my street—Toy Street—which has few eateries or souvenirs shops, about 20-30% of the shops continued to open every day. I hope this isn't an indication that Vietnamese family traditions, which have survived centuries of war and decades of communism, are now starting to erode under the pressures of market capitalism.