Vietnamese Lunar New Year Festival

The Lunar New Year actually officially begins this weekend, but the Vietnamese Community of Georgia got a head-start on Lunar New Year festivities last Sunday in Norcross. Vietnatmese Lunar New Year celebrations are called Tet in Vietnamese. Here is an interesting website with more information about the history, customs, and importance of the Lunar New Year in Vietnam.

The festival was held inside what was once an Office Depot (right next to the Hong Kong Market shopping center, if you're familiar with Norcross). The facility was decorated with painting, lanterns, and flowers. If I am identifying them correctly, the flowers pictured here (with the tall branches) are called Hoa Mai and are often used in traditional Tet decorations

I think my favorite part of the festival was the feeling that I really was traveling

in a foreign country. I could probably count on one hand the number of non-Vietnamese people at the event. I love being thrown out of my comfort zone, not understanding what people are saying around me, not knowing what the performers are stage are talking about, reverting to smiles and gestures to order food, all while not even really knowing what I'm ordering!

I actually ran into my Vietnamese colleague, so she took me around a bit and told me about the food, customs, etc. It turns out the food I ordered was homemade, not from a restaurant, and so is probably about as authentique of Vietnamese food as you can get! (Saigon Basil also had a booth set up, but I opted for the table with handwritten signs/menus). The menu was written entirely in Vietnamese, so I had no idea what was ordering, and just pointed to what looked good. (Well, it actually ALL looked good, I just picked something that looked especially delicious!) After I ran into my colleague, I had her go back to the food table with me and find out the name and ingredients of what I ate. Turns out what I thought was beef was actually goat meat. It was delicious! It was cooked with onions and basil and served with baguette-style bread. I don't know much about Vietnamese cuisine; I wonder if the French colonial history has influenced their cuisine...

The first event I saw on stage was a fashion show of sorts with college-age girls. As I mentioned,

there was no English spoken at the event, but I did hear the words "Miss America" during the introduction of the event, so I suppose it was modeled after a Miss America-style pageant, complete with judges and all.

After the pageant, there was a Loto event with a charming MC who sang a catchy song while the numbers were being selected. I made a movie of it; will try to post it soon.

After exploring the festival for awhile, we went next door and explored the Hong Kong Market. I'll do a separate post on it later this week, since this post is already fairly lengthy!

There are more Lunar New Year events going on this weekend, so if you missed the event yesterday, you still have a chance to celebrate! (See my last post for details!)

Visiting the Buford Highway Farmer's Market

Yesterday I visited the Buford Highway Farmer's Market for the first time. I typically shop at Your Dekalb Farmer's Market for international products and food, but decided to try out another one for variety.

I was so impressed with the quantity and scope of international products available there! The market is generally arranged by region of the world, and includes aisles of products from Brazil, Eastern Europe, China, Korea, Japan, Thailand, the Caribbean, and more. Everything at the market, too, is very reasonably priced.

Almost all the products are labeled in another language; it's sometimes difficult to find the English translation on the product label, and even when I did find it, I was often still left clueless to the contents or use of the product. I always am intrigued by packaging in other languages-- I'm not sure why this is; perhaps it's because it's something representing the quotidian life of people of another country that gets past the touristy images; or perhaps it's because it shakes my ideas of what's "normal" for a soft drink bottle or bag of candy to look like.

The market also includes an extensive produce section with fruits and vegetables from all over the world. I bought longans, a fruit popular in Thailand that I'd never heard of before. Longans are small, grape-like fruits that you have to peel before eating. The flesh of the fruit is similar to that of lychees, but longans are somewhat less flavorful. In any case, it's fun to explore the market and try new fruits and vegetables.

Even if you're not shopping for international food, the market is worth a trip for the people-watching opportunities-- I definitely heard more conversations in foreign languages than I did in English! Outside the market I picked up newspapers in Spanish, Chinese, and Korean.

Here's a short photo slideshow to see some photos from the market.

The market is located at 5600 Buford Highway, Doraville, GA 30340. It's worth the trip!