Tet is coming!

The Lunar New Year (or Tet) is almost here, and the city has been in post-Tet crazy mode. During Tet, almost EVERYTHING closes down, so people bum rush the stores, the markets, and the streets. During the actual week of Tet (first week of February) the streets are essentially empty, but these past two weeks the traffic has been absurd. The best comparison I can make is a shopping mall parking lot on Christmas Eve, it's completely dog-eat-dog out there, with drivers ignoring stop lights and refusing to yield, resulting in giant traffic jams. This year I got a bit smarter and hit the food stores early, getting frozen things to last me the two weeks that everything closes down. Last year I survived on ramen noodles, so I'm excited to have some variety this time around. In the last couple days before the New Year arrives (officially on Feb. 2nd) government workers have been flooding the parks, setting up flower installations, repainting gates, etc. The park near my house currently has a giant sign made of flowers thats reads, "Mung Dang, Mung Xuan", which roughly translates to, "Cheers to Communism, cheers to spring!". Since this flower banner is directly in front of the statue of Lenin, it is quite fitting; Son claims the older generation really like this slogan but that the younger generation think it's quite stupid, since Communism is essentially non-functioning in Vietnam now.

During Tet this year, I had two friends go on vacation to Cambodia for two weeks,

leaving their 5 month old puppy at my house. I figured it would be no big deal, I would walk him twice a day, etc, but I had definitely forgotten how crazy and hyper puppies are. Catas is a great dog when he's tired, so I've been making an effort to take him on long walks 3 times a day to tire him out, so he doesn't start going crazy upon return to my house. He is a very Vietnamese dog, as he likes riding on motorbikes and he sleeps in a suitcase. Additionally, since I have no chew toys for him and I am trying to avoid my house being destroyed, the only thing I've been able to find are plastic, empty gum containers. Right now he is sitting next to me after a tiring morning walk and looking absolutely adorable, but I know after a quick nap I'll have my hands full again.

On Friday night, I chanced leaving the dog home alone to go out to a concert with some friends. We went to see a rap artist (who was actually here last year, refer to blog about Akil for more information) at a recently opened venue on the other side of town. He was so happy to be back, and mingling before his show, so we got to sit and chat with him for about 20 minutes before he went on stage. We all had a great time doing the "When I say Viet, you say Nam!" thing during the show. There was a lot of dancing, and he even had people from the audience come on stage to do a freestyle battle. A female coworker of mine got up on stage and absolutely rocked it; it was great to see a girl take on all the guys who got on stage with sideways hats, big t-shirts, and big rapper egos.

I'm going to take this opportunity with the puppy napping to cook myself up something for breakfast. So, Chuc Mung Nam Moi! or, Happy New Year!