We Celebrate Christmas in Vietnam

Around eight percent of the population of Vietnam is Christian with most of those being Catholic. With such a small percent of the population adhering to Christian beliefs, one would think that Christmas would have a small part of Vietnamese life. However, that is to ignore the secular aspect of Christmas which has in many ways permeated much of the world. A time of giving gifts to others and decorating places with colorful baubles sounds like fun. Throw in a jolly old man in a red suit, and everyone wants a part of it. Vietnam proved no different. While Christmas there is not an official holiday, many people still celebrate, at least they did in Hanoi.

Last week I ended my post telling about four of us having dinner together and then walking back to the hotel. The traffic had been bad, but now it was absolutely ridiculous. From one intersection to the other the roadway was completely full of cars and motorcycles. It was the worst traffic I had seen yet. Part of the problem was that some of the roads were blocked off.

We reached a street and started walking down it. I thought it was the street for our hotel, but it didn’t seem right. I asked Aaron if this was the hotel street, and he realized he had turned a street too early. He started to turn back, but I suggested we continue on. I told him this was the street of St. Joseph’s Cathedral, and we should go see what was happening at the church. Earlier I had tried to determine if they were celebrating a midnight mass or not, but the websites were not in English so I hadn’t figured it out.

It turns out something was happening at the cathedral, and it was very crowded. The church was just completing an outdoor service when we arrived. We could hear singing from a group as we walked down the street. As the church came into sight, we saw some movement of people in the front of the church, but we had missed the program.

At that point the priest began to share a short message which was shown on a couple of large screens outdoors. What was odd was that all the bells of the church and some other noisemakers were ringing out so it was difficult to hear what the priest was saying, not that I would have understood it anyway. The crowd around the church was absolutely crazy. We had a very difficult time moving in any direction as the video shows.

After we stood there for a bit, a Vietnamese man asked me if I was a Christian. When I affirmed that I was, he informed me that there would be a mass at midnight. It was about 10:30 at that point, and I was exhausted from our day so I didn’t make any plans to attend the mass. Considering the crowd that was present, I couldn’t image how they were going to conduct a service if they all stuck around.

As we left to return to the hotel, there were even more people coming toward the church. It really made me wonder why they were all coming. Were they serious believers wanting to celebrate Christmas, or people just looking for a celebration to be a part of. I’m sure there were some of both present. One thing I did notice was the majority of the people were young people. They seemed to understand that the holiday was related to Christianity so they came to explore it.

Christmas morning we were not eager to get up early after our previous day. We had no specific plans until noon when we had lunch reservations. Around 10:30 Silvette was getting restless and wanted to go out and walk around. I suggested we go back to the cathedral and see if anything was going on for Christmas Day. It turned out there was.

The crowd this day didn’t seem as large as the night before, but it was still a large crowd. A service was taking place inside the church this time which was also broadcasting outside. The doors were open so people standing around outside could look in. My timing seems to be off as this service was also just concluding as we arrived. There was a recessional of the officiants and participants of the service. They actually came outside and walked through the crowd although we were a little too far away to get a very good view.

Then the strangest thing happened. Inside the sanctuary musicians were playing and singing the Christmas carol “Angles We Have Heard On High.” I was enjoying singing along in English to the familiar carol. A few feet in front of us was a band all wearing red coats. Shortly after the musicians inside started playing the second verse, the band outside started to play. I expected them to join in with the same song. I was wrong. They started playing an unfamiliar song to me while over the speakers, the musicians continued with the Christmas carol. It was so odd. Someone didn’t coordinate that well.

Since people were leaving the sanctuary, we thought this might be a good opportunity to sneak in and get a view of the interior of the cathedral. It turned out to be a fairly simple interior. They had some stained glass windows, but the church didn’t have all the ornamentation that one often sees in churches in Europe. That was fine with me. Especially in a country like Vietnam, I don’t think all the rich interior decorations would fit the culture. (The yellow duck is a balloon that floated into my photo.)

At this point it was time to head out for our lunch reservation. The menu was pizza. Yes, we were going to have pizza on Christmas Day. This is apparently a well known and respected restaurant, and Christmas Day was the first opening for reservation they had. It was a nice place, and we enjoyed sharing our meal together as a family. Silvette had put together photo books for Aaron and Andrea of their childhood photos. That allowed for lots of laughing and sharing together.

After lunch SIlvette and I decided to walk over the the mausoleum of Ho Chi Minh, the revered leader of Communist Vietnam. Crossing some of the streets and intersections proved once again to be a challenge, but we made it. We passed some old historical buildings along the way. The mausoleum sits up high, and there is a large, basically empty park in front of it. I thought that people could go inside the mausoleum, but apparently only in the morning, and we were there in the afternoon, not that I particularly wanted to go inside and see his body.

To enter the park area one must go through a typical security check with an x-ray machine for one’s possessions. There is also an area to visit where visitors can check out some of the other buildings related to the life of Uncle Ho as he is affectionately called by the people. We would have checked it out, but no credit cards accepted so we didn’t do it.

It was probably just as well as time was starting to get away from us. We needed to walk back through the increasingly heavy traffic to our hotel as we had another activity to finish off our Christmas Day, a puppet show. This was not just any puppet show, but a water puppet show.

The theater is about a 10 minute walk from our hotel. Andrea had discovered the show online and purchased tickets for everyone. At the front of the theater on both sides is a narrow stage area where the musicians sit as well as some women who provide some of the voices for the show. In the center is a pool of water. This is where the puppets perform. As far as I could tell the puppets were on sticks that came out from the back of the pool. They were actually able to do quite a number of motions including tumbling around. The motions seemed a bit jerky at times, but over all it was pretty remarkable.

The performance was not one continuous story line. Instead it seemed to be a series of folk tales that emphasized some of the themes in Vietnamese culture. Everything was done in Vietnamese so we couldn’t understand what was said, although there was not a lot of dialogue. After the performance we saw that we could have received a translation through earphones. Sadly it was too late. At the end of the show the puppeteers came out. The number of performers surprised me.

At this point we all went our separate ways for the day. Silvette and I went to Starbucks to find some familiar food to finish our day. It was near St. Joseph’s Cathedral, and it looked like there was another church service going on, but we didn’t go over to check it out. Tomorrow we planned another big trip so we wanted to get a good night’s sleep. Find out about that trip next week. In the meantime I look forward to your questions or comments in the box below regarding Christmas in Vietnam.

Credit: Food and drink photos taken by Andrea Lee