Tet in Hanoi this year. I went to the market as usual this morning but it is not a usual Saturday. Our nearest market backs onto the flower market, which is normally finishing business by 9 am but this morning it was ten times the normal size and spilling over into the roads, and humming with people. Lorries were parked up along the road to the market and there were piles of ice on the street. Long bundles of vegetation were being unloaded from carts. The fruit stalls were abnormal, too: selling Tet fruit for offerings and gifts. Pink pineapples. Pale papayas wh ich looked as if they had been grown in darkness, they were so delicate. Red apples polished to a shine. Inside the market, The stalls bore produce which had been carefully prepared for the day. Ginger had been scraped and scrubbed clean, onions had almost no skins and were half the normal size (the stallholders told me the farmers could not wait for them to grow and had knocked off early for Tet), everything clean, beautiful and twice the price. The old lady who sold me tomatoes for 25,000 a kilo said 'Vua ret, vua Tet.' Meaning, it's cold so nothing is growing, plus it's Tet, the season of price hikes, so expect me to double rip you off. The other veg lady didn't charge nearly so much.
Bernard has a cough and neither of us slept well last night. he also refused his nap today. So it is a good sleepless start to what was meant to be a week of concentrating on the sleep routine. However, I am optimistic. Also we have a number of friends here this year.
The sun came out this afternoon, and I honestly had forgotten what it felt like! We went to the baby parade and saw a lot of UNIS kids with their parents and grandparents, and very few Vietnamese kids. It is a very busy time of year in Vietnamese hiuseholds right now.
No comments:
Post a Comment