Happy Lunar New Year!

preparing offerings and joss sticks on New Years Eve

We have spent the week in Saigon just as usual. We did nothing special, though the time was special. Even Tet was just as Christmas in Europe. It was nice to see, but Christmas is also always the same. On the last day of the lunar year I drank beer with some uncles, in the evening Thuy Hang’s mother prepared a table with fruits, cake and joss sticks and some red papers with Chinese signs in front of the entrance of their house. Then, we went to the street at the big harbour on Saigon River to see fireworks.

fireworks seen from Nguyen Tat Thanh Street, the district of the poor

We went to the temple for worship and prayers for the future, for love and for a good degree. We went to the flower-market and welcomed the new year with li-xi, we were hanging around in the hotel-room, going to restaurants, to bookshops, having motorbike-rides and strolls through the night, we discovered the neighbourhood on an old bicycle and talked much; about the difficulties of life, about important questions, about perspectives. It was not so easy, to be here with her, in a country, in a neighbourhood and a family where is so little love. At least it has been the two lost souls of us who spent each other love.

the traditional flower-market in the central business district

beautiful flowers and a beautiful heart

This morning Thuy Hang accompanied me to the airport. I am in the transit area in Bangkok now and still see her sitting in front of me in the Phở Restaurant near the airport this morning, with that sad expression on her face, the expression of Jade Moon. The expression that was there already in the moment we first met, the expression that I know to interpret now. I hope to see her again. And I really hope that there is a future - for her, for me, and maybe for both of us.

last motorbike rides in the streets of Saigon

I will miss the streets of Saigon, the dirty air, the scents, this city, the Pearl of the East. And I will miss a very important person. Somebody who finally became so close that it is hard to leave. Somebody, who belongs to me and to this city. Somebody, who splits my mind as no one else. Somebody, who earns all my heart.