Chasing the Dragon: Tet in Saigon

I arrive in Saigon (cumbersomely renamed Ho Chi Minh City) on a shuddering propeller flight courtesy of Cambodia Air. I hate propellers; they always seem dangerously ramshackle. I spend most of the short flight avoiding the window.

Traditionally, New Years Day in the West is devoted to an ideal of renewal and fresh starts. ‘Out with the old, in with the new’ is the cliché on everyone’s lips. But, as bells ring and champagne corks fly, many people are overcome with dejection. They meditate on the passage of time, worry about their weight and fumble for the aspirin. Resolutions made in good faith are quickly forgotten.
The ceremonies of Tet Nguyen Dan, the Vietnamese New Year, celebrated with special magnificence in Saigon, take a different approach. Through active rituals of cleansing and change, people cement their resolve, fixing their eyes clearly on the future. To this end the week preceding the New Year bustles with activity. People scour their homes; floors are swept and scrubbed; walls freshly painted. The rubbish of the year past is thrown out and burnt. Everyone gets haircuts and new clothing. Families reunite and perform rites honoring ancestors. Grudges are forgiven, debts settled, charity is omnipresent.

A Taoist-Buddhist mythology of order and justice underpins these activities. A week before Tet, a celestial ceremony called Le Tao Quan occurs. The Tao Quan is a single holy entity formed by three spirits associated with the hearth and domestic happiness. 

 

The Taoist legend of the Tao Quan tells the story of a happy couple fallen on hard times. The woodcutter husband, demoralized by his inability to provide food for his household, begins to drink heavily and becomes cruel and tyrannical. Unable to bear his abuse, his wife abandons him. Years pass and the wife marries again, this time to a hunter. One day, while her husband is out in the forest, the wife receives a beggar at the door and invites him in for food. As he eats they recognize each other and are filled with pity and remorse. On hearing the hunter returning, she hides the prodigal under a pile of straw. Entering, the hunter suspects something and sets the straw alight to roast game. The former husband remains silent and his wife realizes he is burning quietly to death, unwilling to shatter her present happiness. Overcome with pity the wife throws herself upon the pyre. The horrified hunter believes that he has driven his wife to her death through some cruelty. He too hurls himself into the flames. All three are consumed.

 

Touched by the loyalty and self-sacrifice of the three, the Jade Emperor, divine judge, elevates them to gods. As the Tao Quan, three souls bound as one, they are charged by the heavenly ruler to visit household hearths and to safeguard the well-being of the home. A week before the New Year, on the festival of Le Tao Quan, the three gods ascend heavenward on golden fish. There, they report on the state of each household to the Jade Emperor. Based on their reports, the Emperor dispenses good fortune to virtuous households for the coming year. Every household strives to behave well and appear its very best at Le Tao Quan.

 

The hotel we’re stiting in is a slender pink concrete brick, like a slice of strawberry ice-cream, jutting out of a labyrinth of market stalls. The rounding streets are a pungent stew of odors: of fruit, vegetables, fish, poultry, people, and the fumes from scooters. Here in Duong Nguyen Thau Hoc people come to buy provisions for the three-day holiday that many carry on for a full week. During this period the Vietnamese eat and drink better than they will for the rest of the year. Poorer citizens scrimp and save all year to to be able to afford the required ritual items to enjoy the Tet holiday in style.

Many of the fruits and flowers on sale are a symbolic and seasonal part of Tet. Baskets are heaped with the crisp pink-skinned Chinese apple-pears, or the scarlet-and-jade-green dragon fruit whose spiky pods open onto milk-white flesh. Watermelons are another seasonal favorite and piles of them form emerald ramparts along the sidewalks.

In other parts of Saigon, temporary forests spring up where peach and plum trees blossom. These trees, like the conifers sold at Christmas in the West, are an indispensable part of Tet. Wealthy people buy full-sized trees in heavy wooden tubs that require trucks to transport. Poorer people make do with tabletop miniatures, carried home nestling in their laps as they peddle, or lean back in rickshaws. 

By New Year’s Eve, all the blossom trees, fruit and decorations have found new homes and the market is emptying. Beginning in the morning, people everywhere hurry to gather up every shred of garbage and hose down pavements. Looking down from my balcony, I struggle to remember how it looked yesterday, with streets a seething mass of yammering commerce. By the time the sun reaches its zenith, the streets stretch wide, empty, arid and silent. 

Now it is Le Tao Quan; everybody is at home, quietly celebrating the rituals of hearth and family. Watching a bony dog foraging for scraps, I feel a little lonely. I even miss the rickshaw-drivers incessantly touting for fares. This evening, the Tao Quan will return from heaven, riding their golden fish down to the world to dispense the New Year’s fortune. The atmosphere in the streets is sleepy yet expectant. I mooch about for a while but find nothing going on, and trudge back to my hotel to drink a Tiger beer or two out of the mini-bar before falling asleep.

When I wake, the square of light in the window has faded to a dusky violet. I grope for my watch: eight-thirty! Cursing inwardly, I splash on cold water, run my fingers through my hair, grab my bag and dive out the door. The streets are dimly lit with neon and sodium. The crowds have reemerged and their movements, brisk and deliberate, all lead in one direction. I fall in and march across busy intersections southward as the crowds converge. 

Thousands of scooters hum past in great waves. Young couples ride on some, while others are weighted down with families of five. Everyone is immaculately groomed, dressed in crisp silk or spotless cotton. Tet Nguyen Dan is everybody’s birthday; all of Vietnam celebrates growing a year older at Tet. So tonight is everyone’s party and celebration is compulsory. Many have saved for months in order to afford this birthday blowout.

The crowds thicken as I draw closer to the commercial center of the city, where the flaking French colonial palace of the old Hotel de Ville is theatrically lit, contrasting with the red balloons bobbing and tugging from trees and railings, clutched in chubby fists and tethered to the pillions of motorbikes. These lend the scene a festive but decidedly communist atmosphere more of the northern capital Hanoi, than Saigon, its decadent southern counterpart.

I soon discover, however, that this is not a political rally: red is the color of prosperity. Children run about clutching Li Xi: red paper envelopes embellished with gold lettering. These are to be filled with ‘lucky money’ by family and friends and I try to oblige with a few dong whenever I’m asked. 

The crowds pour towards the docks.

For centuries, Asians have traditionally used fireworks to frighten off evil spirits with loud noise. Although the government banned the personal use of firecrackers in 1998, people do their best to replace them with drums and gongs, hammering out an unrelenting din. As the density of people and mopeds becomes critical, I find a spot and stay put. Nearby stalls are selling such delicious Vietnamese finger-food as fried squid, egg rolls and the Tet specialty; Banh Chung—sticky rice cakes filled with pork and mung beans, resembling parcels wrapped in their banana leaf pouches.

Without a countdown or warning the fireworks begin on the stroke of midnight. Starting intermittently, the detonations intensify until individual cracks and pops merge into a soft overwhelming roar of sound. Every neck is craned back. The sound thunders off buildings lining the quays, and glass office-blocks leap forth brilliantly from the darkness. The crowd watches calmly until the last sparks fade. The street fills with a sudden communal roar as several thousand mopeds get kicked-started into life. Within twenty minutes, the tens of thousands have dispersed into the night without the slightest hitch. 

Through lamp-lit windows and doorways people are seen celebrating Giao Tua, the ushering in of the New Year. On the doorsteps stand little pagodas: model shrines where people lay out food offerings for ancestral spirits and burn incense and votive candles. People kindle small bonfires in the gutter where are incinerated such detritus of the past year as old bills and letters bearing bad news.

The New Year starts with a day of dazzling sunshine. The Vietnamese consider the first person to cross the threshold of the home on New Year’s Day as extremely important to the family’s wellbeing. The first visitor of the year can bring either good or evil luck on the household. Therefore families strive to ensure that the first visitor is someone happy and prosperous, influential, healthy and possessed of a large family. The household shares in the visitors’ good fortune. The poor, ineffectual, sick, lame and barren may find themselves barred from entering the home at this time, although they can expect every kindness otherwise.

I discover I am very much in demand. At curb-sides, people of all ages sit around tables in the sun. They wave me over to them with loud shouts of greeting.

Slightly embarrassed, since I am unable to return the favor with conversation, I accept the cups of beer offered by each of the seated men. Refusing their hospitality would not only be unlucky but horribly rude. After weaving my way from one side of the street to the other I try to make a break for the commercial district only to find myself corralled by a group of local buddies.

These fellows demand that I drink from each of their glasses before providing me with my own. They then go to some lengths to ensure that it never gets more than half empty. Blocks of dubious looking ice bob in the booze. The conversation goes extremely well, despite consisting entirely of laughing, pointing at things and occasionally shouting ‘Chuc Mung Nam Moi!’ I make a present of my sunglasses to a small boy and get a novelty cigarette in return. A wiry middle-aged man performs a cabaret tune. Though the song is in Vietnamese, I recognize the arched wheedling tone. Thwe whole and everyone roars with laughter at the smutty parts, which he emphasizes with fluttering eyelids and suggestive hand gestures. 

A woman comes out and passes various dishes of food around the table. The soups and mixed dishes look a little suspect and doctors’ warnings echo distantly in my mind. I decide upon a small hard-boiled quail’s egg as the least threatening, rolling it until it cracks. Out seeps a dark brownish gruel. The entire table and most of the street sense my discomfort; everyone pauses to watch as I pick the shell apart revealing the hard-boiled remains of a half-formed bird embryo, complete with bulging eyes and damp feathers.

Full of Dutch courage and a desire not to embarrass myself, I half close my eyes and push it between my teeth. It tastes like egg and feels like a mushroom. The atmosphere relaxes. Vaguely disgusted, and yet perversely proud I crack a few more and join in the rest of the meal.

After the fifteenth attempt at emptying my glass, amiably foiled every time, the room is teetering off -balance and I’m certain it’s time to leave. Improvising a clumsy pantomime of my intentions I haul myself upright. A moment passes before I realize just how soused I am. With a final addled wave, I march off with the stiff-legged gait of the self-conscious inebriate.

Lurking in the gloom of the nearest Internet café, I drain my sixth cup of fragrant Vietnamese espresso and shudder visibly. The national brew goes down like sweet spring water and then causes uncontrollable trembling and waves of perspiration. But like a black sledgehammer, it sweeps the alcohol out of me. 

 

The sun vanishes behind sullen mauve clouds every afternoon as the humidity and heat peaks. A half-hour cloudburst follows and then the sun reemerges to boil the pavements dry. Travelers hunching over computer terminals pack the café as they send updates, trying to inspire envy in their friends at home. I sit for a while trying out my various motor functions. I’m a little twitchy and my vision is darting about a bit, but I seem much improved. The steaming streets smell of stewing vegetation. The effects of the morning’s iexcess may have worn off, but I still feel a bit seedy and decide to make a pilgrimage down to the temple district and atone for my sins. 

Tet Nguyen Dan is a busy day in Vietnamese temples; almost the entire population of the country pours through their gates in a continuous torrent of boisterous piety. Outside the temples, monks and nuns solicit alms from the faithful. Temporary stalls sell gigantic sticks and bundles of incense, bound in gold and red paper and covered in good-luck symbols. The largest sticks stand over four feet tall and as thick as a child’s arm. Lit, the pungent smoke billows from them as from a locomotive. 

That heavy, sweet small is everywhere inside. Everyone carries incense and from the ceiling hang dozens of huge conical spirals of the stuff, like coils for monstrous mosquitos. Despite the efforts of a huge extractor fan, my eyes sting. Through the smoky gloom, soot-blackened Buddhas and Bodhisvattas smile beatifically, flanked by wild-eyed guardian spirits with demonic lion-faces brandishing fearsome weapons. Flowers and gaudy plastic decorations array the shrines and carved dragons coil about their feet. The walls whisper with prayer slips set fluttering by the fans. I find some slips inscribed in English and French in gold and silver ink. One catches my eye, ‘For Granny, who has cancer. Love Aoife, Cork, Ireland.’

Buddhism has no taboos against outsider participation. For this reason, non-Buddhists might find themselves taking part in some rituals and often sensing a benefit from this inclusion. The concept of the infidel is alien to Buddhist philosophy and although leading an exemplary life is highly respected, aggressive evangelizing is unheard-of. Rules governing dress and deportment in temples have less to do with dogma than with common courtesy. You remove your shoes as you would before entering any house and avoid rude gestures and those denoting bad luck. In general, don’t point or wiggle your fingers.

The fireworks last night drove out demons; the ceremonies today welcome in spirits of justice, mercy, charity and good fortune. 

Famed worldwide, the ‘dragon’ dances serve this purpose as well as provide spectacles of color, sound and artistry. It’s interesting that the ‘dragons’ of these dances are now called ‘unicorns’. Western tradition associates draco with evil and havoc. Asian myths, however, depict dragons, with their undulating ribbon bodies, curly horns and whiskered faces, as heavenly emissaries, creatures of pure dignity and virtue. The use of the word ‘unicorn’ best suggests the Asian dragon’s actual parallel in the West.

Unicorn dance troupes shake out their tangled ribbons at around six-o-clock in the morning. Still cool, the streets fill with lemon-yellow sunshine as troupes release their serpents from trucks driven into the temple districts. The dancers dress in shiny scarlet and saffron costumes and their unicorns gleam fifty feet long with gold braid, silk and baubles. Carried on long poles above the heads of the crowd, the procession begins to circle and double back on itself in a series of complex convolutions. The courtyard in front of the temple becomes a churning sea of colour as the dance intensifies. The great head of the monster, with its wide toothy smile and bulging eyes, repeatedly vanishes beneath the coils of its body…and then thrusts skyward with a bunching and stretching of acrobatic muscles only to sink back into the swirling mass. 

These upward leapers snatch gifts of money and food held out the high windows. With these donations, the troupe trains, makes repairs and parties. Dancers prepare the displays and rehearse their sinuous moves for months until their technique is flawless. Ot of the multitude, one creature is born. After a long mesmerizing performance they slow down and slink their way into the temple where the dragon and its dancers bow before idols and wash in incense. 

Each unicorn troupe belongs to a different neighborhood. The troupe’s virtuosity inspires local pride when they best other troupes in amiable competition. Each troupe visits several temples during the morning. They then take a break during the hottest part of the day and take to the streets again after the downpour cools things off. 

They arrive unannounced, like all fortune: good or bad. Accompanying the unicorn dances are several less magnificent spin-offs. Pairs of dancers stamp around the edges of the main formation costumed as fierce lion dogs. They poke their heads in through windows, clap their wooden jaws and bounce in and out of shops gathering donations. The gathered children squeal with delight as the lions charge and snap at them.

As the sun sets on the First Day, a feeling of renewal fills the streets of Saigon. People stroll homewards with serene expressions. They have completed all the necessary rituals. I sense nothing of anti-climax or of disappointment; instead, a sense of optimism and order pervades. Observing Tet seems to exert a genuinely beneficial influence on the Vietnamese.

Rarely have I witnessed a popular religious observance whose social influence is so gentle and yet profound. Here at Tet, religious ceremonies are enacted that are deeply enjoyable and personally elevating. Rituals that liberate individuals from the past without forgetting enable everybody to move into the future without bitterness.

 

“Chuc Mung Nam Moi!

 

Chasing the Dragon: Tet in Saigon