The Jaded Empress Chronicles

           Christmas in Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) F or this Empress, Christmas in the tropical south never quite held the same refinement and downright quirkiness experienced in Hanoi, as detailed in my previous chronicle,  here   , which, of course you've already read?  Here in  Ho Chi Minh City / Saigon, the Christmas spirit has tended to err more on the Gin and Vodka varieties: some obscenely indulgent festive lunches washed-down with a tad too many cocktails in the city’s finest five-star hotel restaurants, or blurry festive nights in notorious nightspots like "Apocalypse Now" and "Lost in Saigon." As this Empress hasn’t set her well-pedicured foot in Hanoi since 2006, she is unable to make any comparisons, but Saigon does appear to have increasingly embraced Christmas and the festive season in a big way (albeit still no official public holiday celebrated here). Especially, the commercial way: that fi...

Christmas in Hanoi Except for the eight percent or so of the Christian population, up until really a couple of decades, Christmas was hardly celebrated as a 'religious festival' in Vietnam. For this predominately Mahayana Buddhism nation, Christmas was seen as a rather strange, totally foreign (literally), tradition. However, as Vietnam opened up to global influences, the urban Vietnamese have increasingly each year embraced Christmas and the festive spirit as a mainstream celebration (arguably a superficial, sparkly one at that and still a normal working day, not a public holiday) .  Now on the run-up to the big day – which stretches back to mid-November – you can’t move for flashing fairy lights, Christmas décor tat, multi-sized Santa suits and Christmas carols muzak piped through the malls. Just a taster of Christmas Present in Ho Chi Minh City. But like any good Christmas tale and in true Hollywood style, I return to the ghost of Christmas past…namely, Hanoi, a...