Skip to main content

Christmas in Vietnam (Radio Package)


OUT: NUIG News

Christmas is a time of joy, a time for love and cheer, a time for making memories, to last throughout the year. 

And as we all gear up for the holiday season here in Ireland, it’s easy to forget about the different Christmas celebrations happening all around the world. 

We may be used to the classic Christmas dinner of turkey with stuffing, mashed potatoes and gravy. But in Colombia they eat Patacones, a type of potato pancake, while in Greenland you’d eat whale blubber for dinner, and if you were in Japan, you’d eat KFC as your traditional festive feast.

As children across the country draft their letters to Santa Claus. The kids in Austria are worrying about Krampus, a half-goat, half-demon, who punishes the Children who misbehave. In Iceland, there’s the Christmas Cat who eats up any little ones who haven’t received new clothes on Christmas day. And in Switzerland there’s Santa’s sidekick Schmutzli who helps to decide whether you’ve been naughty or nice. 

While 10,000 kilometres away, in Vietnam, winter traditions are quite different. A predominately Buddhist country, most living there have never seen snow, and there is no such thing as Santa Claus on Christmas morning. 

We caught up with some Vietnamese locals to discuss what they would normally do around the Christmas season. 

[CLIP]

The most important winter tradition in Vietnam is the Tet Holiday or Vietnamese Lunar New Year. The celebration lasts for a total of 9 days and during this time most travel home to their families and visit the graves of their ancestors. 

[CLIP]

While Tet may be the time Vietnamese people visit their family. For many expats, who are living and working, the coronavirus restrictions in Europe mean it’s impossible to come home for Christmas. We spoke to some of those who have emigrated to Asia about their plans this year.

[CLIP]

For many people out there facing their first Christmas away from home, the shock of a new culture may be unusual, but the values that underpin them are the same. Family, community, and kindness. Whether you’re in Vietnam or Ireland, Saigon or Sligo. 

Merry Christmas from Stephen Holland, NUIG News.




Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

David Bowie (1969)

The Bowie Project #2 - David Bowie aka Space Oddity aka Man of Words/Man of Music (1969) Click here to listen to an audio version of this review on Spotify Many call this the first true David Bowie album. After the commercial failure of his first record two years earlier (also called David Bowie ), the future Ziggy Stardust sought to reinvent himself and shed his jaunty music hall vaudeville past, and what better way to erase everyone’s memory of the first album than by giving the next one the exact same name? The origins of this album begin with the promotional movie Love You till Tuesday   which Kenneth Pitt, Bowie’s new manager, hoped would showcase his talents and introduce him to a larger audience. The film ended up being shelved and was not released until 1984 when it finally appeared on VHS. The half-hour promo was originally planned to include seven previously released Bowie songs and one mime performance, but before shooting began Bowie wrote a new song for the fi...
Post a Comment
Read more

David Bowie (1967)

  The Bowie Project #1 – David Bowie (1967) Click here to listen to an audio version of this review on Spotify The David Bowie we find on his 1967 debut album is not quite the Bowie so many would later come to know and love. The pieces are there, the ambition, the creativity, the lyricism but it never quite manages to come together as a cohesive whole. There’s a strange mix of genres on display here, ranging from baroque to music hall to psychedelic rock with Bowie himself stating that the album “seemed to have its roots all over the place, in rock and vaudeville and music hall. I didn't know if I was Max Miller or Elvis Presley ". But in a way, that’s part of its charm. Bowie is finding his feet and personally I find that rather enjoyable. It’s nice to know that his artistic vision didn’t arrive fully formed, that there was a couple of false starts before the real good stuff, that even if we’re not fully satisfied with the things we create, we can go back to the drawing ...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Man Who Sold the World (1970)

  The Bowie Project #3- The Man Who Sold the World (1970) Click here to listen to an audio version of this review on Spotify On his third studio album David Bowie moves away from the largely acoustic psychedelic folk of his previous self-titled release and shifts into a new hard rock sound with the backing of a full band. After the success of the single “ Space Oddity ” the year before failed to boost the accompanying album sales, Bowie decided to form a band with bassist Tony Visconti and drummer John Cambridge. They name themselves the Hype and recruit the now legendary guitarist Mick Ronson. This group (which would later evolve into the Spiders from Mars) wore flamboyant superhero-like costumes designed by Bowie’s first wife Angie, who he married on 20 March 1970, just one month before he started recording this album. Bowie was Rainbowman and wore a multicoloured outfit, Ronson was Gansterman and would dress in a sharp double-breasted suit, Visconti was Hypeman and dressed li...
Post a Comment
Read more