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Helene and I are spending our last day in Ho Chi Minh City, as our plane back to Shanghai leaves tonight at 1 AM. Helene is doing some last-minute shopping, and I take the time to make one last post to my blog from Vietnam.
We spent a quiet New Year’s Eve last time, being that Vietnam celebrates Tet (Lunar New Year, coincides with Chinese New Year) much more than the Western New Year. Today at noon, I was very happy to talk to my parents and brother over the phone, before calling over Sofiane. It was great talking to many of my good friends, albeit way too briefly. Alain, if you read this: I wish we could have talked on the phone! Alas, my mobile phone time ran out.
Strangely, my most persistent memory of Ho Chi Minh City for New Year’s Eve is the song Happy New Year by ABBA, which a taxi driver thought it would be kind to play for us full blast as we zipped along the crazy downtown traffic next to Notre-Dame. So here’s my attempt at getting rid of this song by having it get stuck in your head instead of mine! Happy New Year!
Seems to me now
That the dreams we had before
Are all dead, nothing more
Than confetti on the floor
It’s the end of a decade
In another ten years time
Who can say what we’ll find
What lies waiting down the line
In the end of eighty-nine…Happy New Year
Happy New Year
May we all have a vision now and then
Of a world where every neighbour is a friend
Happy New Year
Happy New Year
May we all have our hopes, our will to try
If we don’t we might as well lay down and die
You and I
