My first Tet

by margherita pitorri (Italy)

Making a local connection Vietnam

I’m sitting at the bus stop next to Ga Ha Noi, the train station of the Vietnamese capital, pink hair, bright red windbreaker. The road spreading in front of me is packed with bikes and mopeds carrying mandarin trees, peach flowers and so many other unidentified plants they seem to challenge the laws of physics. My attention drifts to the smiling man in a green “Grab” jacket on the motorbike that just pulled over to the side . A couple of minutes earlier I booked a lift with the equivalent of “Uber” app - on motorbikes. Thanks to my bright appearance is not hard to spot me even through the undisciplined crowd of people and bikes. The city is fervent with the preparations of Tet (New Year’s) celebrations coming up in the evening. Everyone is rushing around to buy the last Mut to leave for guests to snack on or Banh chung to serve for dinner. With no helmet and with my arms tight around my driver’s waist – the fear of falling is greater than the embarassment of holding him – I am heading back to my friend and her family’s house in the suburbs of Ha Noi where I would finally get the glimpse of a real traditional vietnamese family dinner – just like I could imagine a foreign friend coming over for lunch with my Italian family on Christmas day. The scenario changes quickly: from the narrow streets of the city center permeated with the smell of pork and pho, we go through the large highway-like avenues that run along the city. The motorbikes are so close that it seems they could crash into each other at any moment- but it never happens as they manage to signal their presence with a disproportionate use of the horn. The number of motorbikes honking every single second brings me back to my home country: it reminds me when Italians go around the city honking, cheering to celebrate the victory of a national championship won by their favourite soccer team. Forty minutes later I get home and after trying to thank the driver with some insecure Vietnamese words I walk into the house. I take off my shoes just in time to follow my friend’s mum upstairs – or at least that’s what I think she suggested to me in Vietnamese, since we don’t have a language in common. She introduces me to the little altar set up on the chest of drawers of her bedroom, where all the freshly cooked dishes are laid up, so the divinities can have a taste of the meal before us. Deities pleased and family reunited on the living room floor, we start eating an unpronounceable variety of dishes, we drink vodka and after the challenge and the curiosity of building up a conversation using different languages, the climax of the Tet celebration is already coming up: the fireworks held near a small lake just a short walking distance. I am the only foreigner I see around, and I have the feeling of getting stared at, especially from children. But it is as easy as turning around to meet the relaxed and encouraging eyes of my vietnamese hosts to feel part of the community, just as I would have been going there every year. In the light rain that starts to pour, standing between children, elderly, motorbikes, cars, I look up to the sky to watch my first Tet fireworks. I can really feel the greatness and the privilege of what I am experiencing. This is a chance that no 22-year-old could have imagined just over 40 years ago, when “Vietnam” and “Tet” would just have been linked to the offensive that brought the country through one of the darkest passages of its history. A Vietnam still connected to the idea of war in the eyes of my parents and my older relatives – now in their late 50s – as they experienced it through television and newspapers during their youth. An idea of war that luckily I can’t really understand, I think, while the smell of gunpowder and sulfur mixed with rain fills up my nose. Chuc Mung Nam Moi Viet Nam! Happy new year, Vietnam!