Rather than offer a formal apology for amount of time that has passed since I last posted here, I would point you toward my Flickr photostream, which is where most of my energy has been directed lately.

Translated roughly, the titular question of this post means, “Did you enjoy Tet in Vietnam?” (Literally, it would be, “Tet in Vietnam has happy no?”) It was a question I grew sick of answering.

Marking the lunar new year, also known as the Chinese New Year, Tet is the most important holiday and festival of the Vietnamese people. The name is probably best known in the West because of the 1968 Tet Offensive, but Tet really has nothing to do with what is known here as the American War.

We were given a week of holidays for this Christmas on steroids. A lack of initiative on my part left me without travel plans, so I remained in Hanoi to celebrate Tet with my host family.

I won’t write up my experiences at length here, though I was originally planning to provide some background information on lunar new year traditions such as paying respect to ancestors, giving ‘lucky money’ to young children, returning to countryside homes, and wrapping banh chung. This post has been germinating for too long already.

Instead I will let the pictures speak for themselves. If you haven’t already, take a moment to peruse the photo album linked to the picture below (or here on Flickr).

Lucky Money #1