Chúc mừng năm mới, năm con mèo!

Last year around this time we left Vietnam for a trip through Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore.  This year we’re a bit traveled out, so we stuck around for Vietnam’s celebrations of the Lunar New Year (Tết).

The iconic Rex Hotel, decked out for the Year of the Cat 

If you’ve heard anything in the news about Lunar New Year, you probably know that it’s the year of the rabbit under the Chinese zodiac system.  In Vietnam, however, we’ve been celebrating the year of the cat.  From what I understand, the Chinese word for “rabbit” sounds incredibly similar to the Vietnamese word for “cat,” and that may be how the difference in the zodiac systems came to be (on a side note, the Vietnamese word for cat is mèo, which with the low falling tone really does kind of sound like a cat meowing!  Maybe a grumpy old one?).

In Vietnam, the holiday is primarily celebrated during the first three days of the new lunar cycle: in this case, February 3-5.  Most people return home to be with their families, perhaps for two or three weeks.  There are new clothes, traditional foods, and lucky money for young people.

Nguyen Hue, a central street in Ho Chi Minh City, has been under construction for several weeks as decorations were constructed for this year’s celebrations.  There were even walls blocking the area from view until it was finished!  Joey and I wandered downtown to check out the festivities on New Year’s Eve.

There were flowers everywhere, lots of cat-themed sculptures, and even several fountains constructed in the middle of the street, just for Tết.  Taking pictures in pretty or kitschy scenery is a favorite Vietnamese pastime, so there were lots of people dressed in their best, posing with peace signs in front of the displays.

We also saw a bunch of these mini-parades in the streets—often just a handful of people dressed as a dragon.  These are crappy pictures, but they illustrate how typically Vietnamese the parades were: no announcement or fanfare, no one stopping or directing traffic, just some drums and a bunch of people in the street, moving in the wrong direction on a one-way street.

 

Most schools and offices won’t open until next week, so we have a little while longer before real life starts up again.  I am more than ready—it’s been nearly two full months of vacation now!

Wishing you and yours a happy, lucky and prosperous new year!