It's Tết Time!

The whole country is gearing up for the lunar New Year, which in Vietnam is called Tết. It’s been really exciting to watch! There are banners on every street that say “chúc mừng năm mới,” aka Happy New Year, and all of the stores on the streets are selling big gift baskets. And tons of drivers are riding around with massive quat and peach blossom trees on the backs of their motorbikes – according to some friends here, they are very traditional trees to have at your house during Tet. Here are some pics of cars/trucks with the trees on the back and other Tet preparations that I saw around Hanoi today:

Many friends and coworkers have invited me over to their house for Tet, and apparently the week is like a never-ending party in the houses of all of your acquaintances. I can’t wait!! Another part of Tet tradition, which I’ve heard about tons from my younger Vietnamese friends, is the handing out of “lucky money.” It’s sort of like what Christmas money is in the States. Here, when you’re little, all of your relatives hand you envelopes full of varying amounts of lucky money-- apparently, from your parents, you get around 300,000 VND – 400,000 VND (about $15-$20 USD), and from more distant family friends and relatives you receive from 50,000 VND – 100,000 VND ($2.50-$5.00). The older you get, the more you receive, until you graduate from university. At that point, all bets are off and you might or might not receive lucky money from your family. But university grads don’t have to be too worried because they might get some lucky money from their new boss to make up for it.

Hope you're all staying warm in the cold weather. I miss the snow a ton (never thought I'd be saying that!) but it's been coooollldddd here too. Definitely a different kind of cold than over in the states.. Yes, the temperature is higher, but no buildings have central heating systems so that basically means you're cold 24/7! And when I ride my motorbike around the wind chill makes things feel pretty nippy. Vietnamese kids have it lucky in terms of winter days off, though- if the temperature drops below 7 degrees Celcius they don't have to go to school!

My research has been picking up speed lately. All levels of the Hanoi government, from the Hanoi People’s Committee at the top to the Departments of Education and Training in each of the districts I’m working in, have given their approval for me to begin contacting parents. My translators Linh and Tung (who are really more like fellow researchers at this point) and I have traveled to each of the six elementary schools – where all the principals have been very gracious in agreeing to provide us with the information we need to get going. And it has been great that I can speak some Vietnamese – I was able to actually follow along during parts of conversations that my translators were having with principals and government officials, as well as speak a bit with the principals myself.

Traveling to the rural district, Ba Vi, was quite an experience. Tuesday morning at 6 a.m., Linh, Tung and I met in front of RMIT University, a famous university in Hanoi where Linh studies. I hopped on the back of Tung’s motorbike (I trust my driving skills, but not enough to go rural yet), and we drove 60 kilometers outside the city center. It took about 2 hours to get to the DOET and elementary schools in Ba Vi because the road conditions are not so great. When we were close to Ba Vi, we sat down to have tea in a nearby town and met an older man who was a doctor for the Vietnamese army during the war. He told us that he thinks it’s great that young people from America and Vietnam are able to get along and work together. Before we got up to leave, we smiled as he took a picture of us with his mobile phone.

The people in Ba Vi were all incredibly helpful. The principal of one of the elementary schools we went to told us that there are a number of HIV-positive orphans who are forced to learn in a center next to the school (alongside adult drug users, sex workers, and criminals) because parents of the other children in the area refuse to allow the orphans to learn alongside their children. A teacher from the elementary school goes to the center to teach the children each day. We were shocked and appalled when we heard this news. Hopefully, in a year or two that will begin to change.

I’m still taking Vietnamese lessons with Co Giang, who has taught me some very useful phrases (especially how to let someone in a shop know you’re aware they are ripping you off). Sometimes when I’m studying, I sit in cafés with my beginner’s book of phrases and ask people around me for help with my pronunciation. People get really excited when they get to help someone master the local language. And I have been getting really into the food. My current favorites are “mien ga” which is basically thin noodle soup with chicken in it, and nem chua, which is basically like fried pork on a stick that you can eat with chili sauce. Last Sunday, I went to a birthday party for Tung (I gave him “UNO” and a vat of rice wine with a snake sitting in it as gifts). During the party, we all sat around hot pots and cooked beef and pig hearts, and then ate them with mushrooms, tomatoes, and other vegetables. I was apprehensive about the pig hearts at first, but the whole thing was soo so delicious. Afterwards we ate sunflower seeds and had cake. His mom gave me two big grapefruits to take home when I left!

I’ve also been feeling more and more like Hanoi is a really small place despite its 6 million(ish) residents. A few weekends ago, I went to a play at the Hanoi Opera House with a coworker, Thanh. We saw “Through the Valley,” which was a really great production of King Arthur’s Perceval story. It was put on by Germans and Vietnamese to culminate a year-long series of events celebrating 35 years of positive German-Vietnamese relations. The opera’s songs were in German, the speaking was in Vietnamese, and there were English subtitles – pretty multicultural. The guy who played Perceval was fantastic!! Fast-forward to a few days later, when Thanh and I, along with another woman from our office named Mai, went to a workshop on writing funding proposals at the American Embassy. We sat in the last row. All of a sudden the guy in front of me turned around and turned out to be the very same person who played Perceval in the play. He couldn’t speak much English and I can’t speak much Vietnamese, but it was still awesome getting to talk to him! Now, he and I and my two coworkers are collaborating on a funding proposal for a climate change project. Add to it the fact that Mai, who I met this month, used to work at the same NGO that hosted me in Vietnam last summer (meaning we have 10 mutual facebook friends!) and this whole thing really epitomizes the phrase “small world!”