Vietnam - What is Tet like in the backpacker area?

Though the main streets in District 1 have been lit up and decorated for weeks to welcome the Tet holiday, which is very near, the backpacker area has just started its celebration preparation recently.

P1: A convenient home for expats
P2: More than serving food and drinks
P3: Watch, or you shall be the next

When visiting the area these days, it’s easy to see a big banner on the local restaurant named Alez Boo at the corner of De Tham and Pham Ngu Lao streets, promoting its special program for dinners coming during the Tet days. According to some local residents and expats living in the area, local cafés, bars and restaurants closed during the holiday in the past, but in recent years they have remained open.

Also, on the morning of January 16, artisans were sprinting to finish the preparation of their flowers for the Tet market at the 23/9 park on Pham Ngu Lao Street. The event takes place every year at the park, adding a little Tet atmosphere to the life of the area.

The most popular kind of flower at the market is the apricot blossom, an indispensable decoration representing luck, prosperity, and well-being in the new year in southern Vietnam.

Meanwhile, local shops, cafés, hotels, bars and restaurants also bring Tet to their premises with decorations like plastic apricot blossom flowers, lights, and Calligraphy.

To many foreigners who have experienced Vietnamese Tet holidays, the event is a special chance for them to get to know more about local culture.

For Algerian Nordine C., who married a Vietnamese woman several years ago, Tet is the occasion when he spends a lot of time with his wife’s family to get to know them better and have the feeling of being part of a family.

“Vietnamese Tet holiday is number one,” the man said with a smile.

He also mentioned that he loves the way Vietnamese people retain their traditional culture through the holiday.

Unlike Nordine, who has experienced Tet, to Michael Abissinia, a young man from Belgium, this year’s Tet is the first time he has seen this kind of holiday. Stepping around the uncompleted flower market at 23/9 Park, the man feels interested in the atmosphere here.

“The flowers are pretty, the atmosphere is cool, and everything is just beautiful around here,” Abissinia commented, though he doesn’t know much about the holiday.

“In a big city like Ho Chi Minh City, the decoration is fantastic. We foreigners know Vietnamese are very good with color and decorations like flowers and artistic designs,” Michael Delargy, an Australian man who has traveled between the two countries during the last six years and stayed in Vietnam for 15 months this time, also shared his feeling about Tet.

After experiencing four Tet holidays in the backpacker area the man, who has always stayed at a hotel in the 40th alley on Bui Vien Street when he comes to Vietnam, said he wants to be a local.

“On Tet, I always give the hotel’s staff lucky money because it’s Vietnamese tradition and I respect it. It’s the same with Christmas in the West when we give gifts together, mostly to children,” Delargy added.

“People working at the hotel are my friends. They look after me very well.”

However, while Vietnamese people gather with families and feel happy on their biggest holiday of the year, some foreigners feel quite empty during the days.

“For foreigners in Vietnam or in Saigon, it’s very lonely because all the Vietnamese go back to their families in the countryside usually,” the Australian man said.

“The city’s quite empty and some places are closed and mostly here in District 1, the restaurants stay open. Foreigners normally get together because all the Vietnamese friends have gone,” he added.

That’s why some of them said they just wanted the holiday to be finished so they could come back to the normal life.

Also, Tet has become a tough time for owners of local restaurants and hotels.

“We have to work a lot at the time since almost my entire staff will go back to their hometown for Tet,” Tu, owner of Mimi hotel on Bui Vien Street, said.

For that reason, some restaurants are announcing that they are recruiting employees for Tet.

Some foreigners have drink at a local cafe decorated with theme of Tet. The cafe also hangs a banner for staff recruitment

Moreover, it’s not very easy to see the Tet atmosphere in the area which is covered with foreigners, since it doesn’t change a lot.

“The area is decorated just one week before Tet and the decorations are not sophisticated like on Christmas or New Year before,” Truc, a local resident said.

Delargy said foreigners like him always visit the downtown area in District 1, especially Nguyen Hue Flower Street Festival, to enjoy Vietmaese Tet holiday every year. It seems that there should be more Tet decorations or activities in the area, which is famous for its large amount of foreigners, to bring Vietnamese culture to the world.

NGOC DONG

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