A haphazard chronicle of my inevitable misadventures during a year in Vietnam and points east.

p.s. I'll be pitifully grateful if you send me email during my exile: TravelerKaty@hotmail.com

October 2002 November 2002 December 2002 January 2003 February 2003 March 2003 April 2003 May 2003 June 2003 July 2003 August 2003 September 2003 October 2003 November 2003 February 2006 March 2006 May 2006

 
Christmas in Saigon is a strange animal. The country is basically Buddhist, but the whole of Saigon is littered with the kind of Christmas decorations you would see in the 50% Off section at Walmart. In other words, tacky. I have never seen so many multicolored "Merry Christmas" signs, variable speed blinking lights, fake greenery, tinsel, and enough sparkly gold ornaments to give Fort Knox a run for its money in the Excessive Amount of Gold stakes. The order of the day is clearly "shiny", and many of the more awful decorations look like they may have been left behind by US troops in 1973.

Trees and inflatable Santas abound, and many stores are playing painfully awful renditions of Christmas songs in an endless loop. They really seem to like medleys, for example, and pretty much every tune has a disco dance mix flavor to it. You just haven't lived until you've heard the extended dance version of "Hark the Herald Angels Sing."

I have three favorite Santas around town The first sits in a big sparkly sleigh in the Nokia store, being pulled by two reindeer. Looks like all the good little girls and boys are going to get giant cell phones for Christmas, since Santa's sleigh is so loaded with then that they're spilling out onto the fake snow. My second favorite is the showroom window painting of santa delivering gifts from his brand new Daewoo subcompact. No need for reindeer with that one! But my all-time favorite Santa is right in my neighborhood, at a cantina-style outdoor grilled meat restaurant. On the big wall next to the kitchen they have installed a huge wooden painted Santa, somewhat disgruntled-looking, actually, whose bag contains only beer, liquor, and glasses. Now that's a Santa that adults can rally around.

© 2002 Katy Warren

posted by Katy at 2:46 AM