Christmas in Vietnam

Submitted by tomo on December 26, 2012 - 4:15pm

Christmas in Vietnam is stressful. Just kidding. The downtown streets of Saigon get pretty packed as young people crowd in for the various photo opportunities on Le Loi and Nguyen Hue streets. And the whole area around Diamond Plaza and Notre Dame Cathedral is packed right up until Christmas Eve at midnight. Christmas in Vietnam actually ends right after it becomes December 25th. Christmas in Vietnam means Christmas Eve!

One nice thing about celebrating Christmas in Vietnam is that there's no pressure to do Christmas shopping. Forget Black Friday or Cyber Monday. And forget Boxing Day. Buy a gift for somebody if you want. But only do so because you want to, not because you feel obligated, because you expect they will buy you a gift. Because they probably won't.

Only one in 10 Vietnamese people are Christian, although that makes it one of the more Christian Asian countries. So why do you see Christmas decorations everywhere? Why are there giang Christmas trees downtown and Christmas lights hanging all over stores (to be fair, those lights often stay up year round).

Like Halloween and other Western holidays, Christmas is celebrated more and more as Vietnam is more exposed to Western culture. But it's been celebrated in the country for a long time actually. During South Vietnam's brief existence as a Catholic nation, with a war ongoing, it was celebrated. After the war's conclusion, Vietnam, including former South Vietnam and Saigon were impoverished as a result of poor economic policies. There was not much celebration of any kind. Only until after Doi Moi (return to capitalism) did people have money to celebrate things like Christmas again. Nowadays, at least in the cities, young people party in the streets without much care. Celebrating Christmas means going to Mass for Christians and just going outside with friends for everyone else. There might be some drinking and eating (nhau) to go along but you won't find turkey or other traditional Western Christmas dishes.

So there you have it. Christmas in Vietnam comes and goes. People still go to work on the 25th and there's not much to look forward to on New Years either. The big holiday here is Tet, the Lunar New Year.

© 2010-2014 Saigonist.

About the author

Asian-American expat living in Vietnam over 3 years. I am involved in tech startups and do Drupal consulting. I choose to live in Saigon and Vietnam and I want to see the city and its people reach their true potential.

Where is Saigon?

It's not wrong to wonder where in the world Saigon is.

Saigon is the name of the city now officially known as Ho Chi Minh City. But most people who call Saigon home call their home Saigon and it's mostly tourists who I hear refer to it as Ho Chi Minh City (or Ho Chi Minh Ville for the French).

After the Vietnam/American War ended in 1975, many place names ceased to exist such as Saigon, South Vietnam, and plenty of street names.

Tu Do is now Dong Khoi, Thong Nhat is Le Duan. And Tan Son Nhut Airport is now Tan Son Nhat International Airport. Rue Paul Blanchy has been Hai Ba Trung since the 1950s.

Those who haven't seen Vietnam for decades will be confused not just by the geographical changes but the incredible amount of development and modernization that has since taken place.

Latest Technical Posts

I also post a lot of technical material unrelated to Vietnam that doesn't hit the home page. Starting from November 2015 I am only posting technical articles on my new sub-blog: TECH.saigonist.com

  • Definition of Startup: What isn't a startup? : What is a startup? We're in the middle of a tech boom and it's become fashionable to either work for a startup or to be a startup. But what is a startup? How do you know that company offering you a...
  • My Startup Experiences : I've been involved in start ups for over a decade now. During that time I've worked for companies in varying stage of development. Not all of them were startups. But how can you tell if it is or not...
  • Code Retreat 2012 - Ho Chi Minh City : $(document).ready(function(){ $('.geshifilter').hover(function(){console.log(this);console.log($(this));$(this).css('position', 'relative').css('width', '800px').css('z-index', 1000);}, function...
  • Internet Censorship in Southeast Asian Countries (Myanmar, China, Malaysia, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam) : Vietnam has been labeled an "enemy of the Internet" by Reporters Without Borders. There have been a lot of cases of bloggers being targeted, harrassed, and arrested. But RSF (Reporters Sans...
  • Using 3G Internet in Cambodia : On my most recent trip to Cambodia I bought a Cambodian SIM card so that I could both make calls and use the Internet on my smartphone. At the Moc Bai/Bavet border are a number of Khmer people (who...
  • MailChimp vs poMMo, Mailman, Phplist - Self-Host or Outsource Your Mailing List? : Use your own mail server or outsource it? Let's say you have a rather large mailing list of a few thousand email addresses and, well, sending it out with GMail is no longer cutting it. What are your...
  • Internet in Vietnam - Good, Bad, Ugly : If you ask Vietnamese officials, you'll hear such hyperbole as "the Internet service development in Vietnam is in no way inferior to developed countries in the world" (Mai Liem Truc, former Deputy...
  • poMMo proBLEMs : poMMo is free open source mailing list management software. It's written in PHP and pretty basic but does give a decent management interface. However, it's no longer maintained. There is a GitHub...
  • Preventing Repetitive Stress Injuries for Programmers and Writers : My situation I'm a career programmer who has suffered from pain in my hands and arms for several years. Like carpal tunnel syndrome, this pain is from damage to tissue (including tendons) caused by...
  • Calling the US for free from foreign countries : Calling US numbers from the US is pretty trivial and nearly free. But calling from another country means either: - paying for long distance from your telephone company - using a phone card to call...

Recent activity in the expat forum...