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Published: January 12th 2009
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Alright, the first blog entry of 2009! I feel the last few entries have been exponentially increasing in size and maybe growing a little too long-winded and a little less practical for a “toilet time” read, which is, of course, the intended purpose of these ramblings. So, as a resolution of sorts, I will begin the New Year with a shorter story about the arrival of ’09 in Vietnam; maybe by cutting the length of these entries, I will be able to update the blog more frequently. We shall see.
To usher in the New Year, the housemates and I romped down to the center of Le Loi street, outside the market. Where a neon green globe had been erected a week earlier for Christmas celebrations, there now stood a large and festive multi-colored display that featured a giant banner reading, “Happy New Year!” below the Vietnamese equivalent. The girls all wore plastic glasses/moustache contraptions purchased earlier for Christmas, while I chose to sport my adored multi-colored hat purchased for 99 cents in an authentic Mexican grocery store somewhere in rural Southern California. After fighting our way to the middle of the crowd, we prepared ourselves for the countdown by
buying party favors and little bags of confetti.
At around 12:05, it became evident that Vietnam did not adhere to the mandatory countdown/fireworks routine practiced in many cultures; midnight came and went with all the gusto of a cremation. One could say that Vietnam really dropped the ball on New Year’s but that might be excessively punny. Anyhow, once it became apparent that nobody in the vicinity knew or cared what time it actually was, I decided to cash in my birthday card and navigate our way to the New Year by use of my wristwatch. Timing myself with the second hand, I began to shout “Mười...Chín…Tám…” and, thankfully, everyone else joined in all the way down to “...Một…HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!” We greeted 2009 with dancing and fistfuls of blue confetti launched emphatically into the sky, making the usual spectacle of ourselves that we can never seem to avoid whenever we go out in public together.
Many Vietnamese were smiling and laughing (at us, I’m sure) but all of a sudden, above the celebratory whoops, we heard a shrill voice berating us in the local tongue. Turning around, we saw it was coming from one of the many
food vendors who were operating the premises; wherever you find drunk foreigners, you will also find food and beer vendors nearby to assist with any wallets that may grow too bulky. This particular vendor was red in the face, screaming at us and then pointing down to her bowl of papaya slices that were now coated in a nice, even layer of blue confetti. It seemed that one of us had tossed more softball than tennis and inadvertently showered the merchandise with an unexpected bonus topping. As the woman stood there howling, demanding that we pay her 500,000 Dong for the food we had sullied, none of us really knew what to do except instinctually move towards each other to stand in a circle like a herd of zebras in the Serengeti working together to fend off a lion attack. The vendor continued her tirade and at one point, for really lack of anything else to say or do, I took a step forward, smiled, and said in a big, loud, drunk-teacher voice, “Happy New Year to you!” and waved. At this point, most of the crowd had stopped laughing and dancing and were now standing, cocked head in curiosity,
non-too-discretely hoping for a dramatic incident to unfold that they could later embellish to their friends. The woman was now pleading her case to a couple of other vendors who were listening earnestly. We felt bad to have ruined her night but really, these things will happen if one insists on leaving bowls of fruit exposed around celebratory folk. Besides, none of us had the cash to pay off her request of 500,000 Dong, which was about 10 times what the fruit was actually worth.
We turned back to each other and decided it was best to leave before anything escalated. As we discussed our next possible destination, we heard a hoarse voice shout, in the most broken of English, “Ha-ppee New Ye-ah!!” and then a splattering sound that for some reason reminded me of the scene in
Hannibal where Dr. Lecter tosses an already disemboweled victim out of a third story window and creates quite a mess on the Venetian street below. Looking down, I saw slices of blue, sparkling papaya sliding towards me and congealing in a mess around the base of my sandals. One by one, the housemates and I realized what had just happened: we
had become the victims of a public fruiting! The girls had papaya in their hair and on their clothes; it was hard to walk around without slipping on the fruit that now covered the street around us. I did my best to remain cool and decided to make light of the situation rather than get into it with the woman, which actually probably frustrated her more than anything - Vietnamese seem to love confrontation. The vendor bent down and this time I saw it coming in time to duck. A tsunami of confetti floating in leftover papaya juice was jettisoned from the bottom of the bowl at a high velocity towards us and doused our backs, shoulders, arms with a tremendous splash; nobody escaped the sticky juice-wave. At first, we were stunned, just turning around, staring open mouthed at each other. But once we stopped dripping and the crowd had dispersed when it became clear there would be no retaliation from us, really, all we could do is laugh and think about what a great story the whole debacle was going to make once we met up with our friends at the bar.
Anyway, that is how I came
to wake up at 11:00 on New Year’s Day with a post-birthday hangover, confetti nestled snugly in chest hair, and a strange stickiness in and around my ear that took me half the day to correctly identify as dried papaya juice.
Have a great 2009, everyone!
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Chris McKee
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Lol.
Thom, yet another amazing night in an epic country. Out of everyone I've ever met in my life, you have probably met the most interesting people / done the most epic things. From the Mercedes CEO that needs to learn how to speak English, to almost falling into a well, having papaya thrown at you in broken english to drinking a beer in psychology class. Amazing. I just remembered taking a picture of Ulrich in the middle of class, and the flash going off. I'm still embarrassed.