Christmas in Vietnam

When I decided to move to Saigon for a CELTA course which began in mid-November and ended a week before Christmas, I knew the holiday season would not be a highlight. But, I put things in perspective and decided to sacrifice my Holiday season in favor of starting my new life a few months earlier. Overall, I must say I don't regret the decision, though I now have insight into the deeply depressing and lonely side of the Holidays. Nothing says "Merry Christmas" better than attempting to track down an ever-elusive Christmas package lost somewhere in the depths of the postal bureaucracy of a developing socialist country.

I've been here just over one month, most of which was spent teaching, learning to teach, or preparing to teach in my CELTA course. Most days all 12 of us trainees spent between 10-12 hours at the Apollo center doing precisely these things and getting to know each other for better or worse (more on this topic later). While I must say the intensive course took a lot out of me, it is pretty amazing that after only 4 weeks I am now qualified to run a classroom all on my own. It sounds ridiculous to me, too. Due to the intensive work schedule, I was loathe to begin a blog during the course, hence my late start. More on the CELTA course later.

Basically, my Christmas consisted of wandering around this foreign and very hot city in an attempt to track down my Christmas package. Thankfully, I was accompanied by my friend (I made a friend!) Francesca, so at least I wasn't on my own. The poor girl had to put up with my infuriated rants during the entire 4-hour enterprise, by which time the only thing I had to show for my efforts were puffy eyes and a very bitchy attitude. Eventually, on Monday morning I got Chinh, a friend and local bar owner, to accompany me to the post office. With his help and Vietnamese linguistic abilities, it took a mere 2 hours and $17 tax fee to obtain my package.

Once I got home and gleefully ripped the packing tape off my cardboard box, I was met by a bunch of presents which had thoughtfully been unwrapped by the Vietnamese customs officials. Shout out to them for doing my dirty work for me. At that point I was just so excited to get anything from home that I didn't really care about the fact that my presents were no longer wrapped, though I believe my mom's feelings differ on that matter.

Of course, Christmas in HCM City is not without its charms. People are so delighted with the idea of Christmas (and there are a decent amount of Catholics here) that there are decorations EVERYWHERE. Sadly, the climate doesn't allow for real trees, but there is an abundance of fake ones. Vietnamese love bright lights and colors, so the decorations are very flashy. Perhaps my mother would prefer the terms 'tacky' or 'kitschy', but the Vietnamese sure think it's pretty. Fake snow abounds, and often times aluminum foil is used in place of snow, a custom I don't exactly understand, but then who am I to judge. I guess it makes as much sense as presents in oversized socks or a fat guy being driven around by flying caribou. Christmas Eve night is quite a spectacle here as well. Basically, the entire city comes out for a street party (translation: insane traffic jams throughout the city, and thousands of people milling about), many people actually dressed in variations of the Santa  outfit. Teenage hijinks abound, most involving fake snow in spray cans. Westerners are apparently big targets, and I got multiple face-fulls of chemical snow foam.

Christmas dinner consisted of a Vietnamese feast at Chinh's apartment (to use Francesca's delightfully British phrase, "Bless his cotton socks"), which included a variety of spring rolls, vegetables, pork, and fish, as well as dog. That's right, I spent Christmas dinner eating dog. In reality I just tried one bite, but I felt like a true cultural pioneer. Interestingly, Mr. Chinh has 2 dogs as pets, and purports to love dogs very much. Thinking about it, I guess it is pretty hypocritical to condemn the consumption of dog meat when we freely eat pig, cow, lamb, deer, rabbit, etc. That said, I don't believe I will make a habit of consuming large plates of cocker spaniel. It did taste pretty good though.

I now know that in the following years of my life, I will make sure I am home with family for the holidays. Though I must say I appreciate the fact that I now have a very interesting Christmas story in my arsenal. How many other Americans can say they had dog for Christmas dinner?