This new lunar year is "The Year Of The Tiger." Apparently this is a good year to have a son in Vietnam and a bad year to have a daughter. Actually, I was shocked to learn this because I thought Vietnamese people thought every year was a good year to have a son.
One thing you do during Tet is visit other families and friends and have a quick chat and snack with them. Huyen and I went to a friend's house and had a drink with her family. As her mother was pouring wine, her father informed us that there was a tiger in the wine. I laughed at this although I knew he was probably not joking. You may remember last year that while in Babe Lake, I drank wine that had been fermented with bear bones. Well, this was the same deal apparently except with a tiger.
For the record, I'm absolutely against killing tigers or any other non-farmed, close to extinction species. I can only assume that one tiger probably made thousands of bottles of wine but really I have no idea if this is the case. If you're keeping track though, I've now had a tiger and a bear. I'm officially only one blog away from the blog title, "Lions, Tigers and Bears Oh My."
