26.01.2009
Eruption of chaos with children and mandarin oranges and visitors and bimbim snacks and gutteral sounds and smells of chicken livers, petral, coal, incense, burning papers, pomelos, cooked rice steam and tea; cold weather and smog and laughter and misunderstandings and stilted English (theirs) and primitive Vietnamese (mine) and sweet yellow bean cake and xoi and sleeping mats and herbs and street vendors and mangey dogs and women on bicycles with billowing parachutes of balloons and flowers and chickens in bamboo baskets and orange and cherry blossom trees, bananas on the alter, sweets trays, ground peanuts, green banh chung chay, “chuc mung nam moi” and red, red, everywhere.