Good afternoon guys, it's Cory here.
I'm in the Old Quarter of Hanoi city, and I'm going to show you a very special street.
Called Hàng Mã, and this place is well-known for all the paper goods that they sell on this street.
This street has been selling paper goods for over 500 years!
You have to remember, Hanoi is over 1,000 years old.
So this street, very cool, especially during seasonal holidays.
So like Christmas, or Tết, which is the Lunar New Year.
You'll see a lot of the different themes coming out. For example,
Halloween. There was a lot of Halloween decorations.
Right now, it's almost December, so you'll see a lot of Christmas stuff.
So I kind of wanted to show this to you guys, it's not a super long street.
But it's very interesting. So let's go!
Here's the street name, Hàng Mã.
So right now, you can see there's just a shit ton of Christmas decorations.
But they also sell other stuff, more related towards like Chinese New Year, joss paper, ghost money
kind of stuff that you burn to appease the ghosts and ancestors and pray for good luck and stuff.
But, right now, look at this.
Just Christmas decorations galore.
It's on both sides of the street.
So you can see here, some Santa outfits.
Lots of shiny Christmas bells.
And of course, any time you're in the Old Quarter during the day time, there's going to be traffic.
So you can see, this is just everyday Vietnamese traffic.
This isn't even heavy right now.
Some garlands.
Dolls.
Ok, so I gotta cross. This is how you cross in Vietnam, you just go.
Ok, getting back to Hàng Mã street.
So I know some people are wondering 'Do people in Vietnam celebrate Christmas?'
Some do, but not in the way that westerners do, where they setup Christmas trees and have presents and Santa comes and all that stuff.
It's more of like they like the festive look of it, so you'll see some people using a lot of these
ornaments and decorations on their businesses.
And like at schools, or public places, community centers, and stuff like that.
I don't really ever see people putting stuff up on their homes, yet at least.
Maybe later on they do?
But yeah, I haven't been here that long.
Only 6 months. So this will be my first winter in Vietnam.
They're really busy, it's Monday afternoon. And you can see everyone's just got all their stuff
out on display. Very shiny. Very Christmas-y.
This road is only like 3 city blocks long, if that.
It's completely packed with a lot of stuff.
So I'm going to pretty much go down on one side and then cross the street and come back the other side.
So that way you can see everything. It's going to be a really short walking video.
Someone's wedding thing going on here.
Yeah so, I've been trying to keep my eye open for anything uniquely Vietnamese Christmas style,
like, I dunno... Vietnamese guy dressed like Santa or something, but I haven't seen anything yet.
Wow!
Very impressive looking.
I've never seen this amount of Christmas ornaments in one place.
Not in Korea and not even in America.
And I used to work for Michael's Arts & Crafts, and I used to sell Christmas trees and ornaments and all that stuff so I know.
This is way more than that.
How much is this stuff? I don't know.
There's no price on anything, so you pretty much have to just ask them.
Creepy sax-playing Santa.
See, here's another example of different types of paper goods that they sell, it's all just birthday related.
Birthday signs and banners.
So it's really cool that you can get this kind of like festive stuff here in Southeast Asia.
Currently, it's about maybe 20°C (68°F)
Which is not cold, but Hanoi winters, I was told about this, the humidity makes it feel like it's
almost 0°C (32°F)
Today is not so bad, but the past week was pretty freezing.
I'm using a winter blanket at home when I sleep and I definitely dress up in layers.
Just a nice little walk.
I'm really curious to know how people really celebrate when it comes to Christmas day. Like what do they do?
For example, in Japan, people get a bucket of KFC chicken and some cake.
In America, you know, people have Christmas dinner, unwrap presents and stuff
What do people in Vietnam do?
I guess I'll find out in about 4 weeks or so.
This is more of the traditional stuff that they sell here all the time.
These lanterns.
Every time I see a Santa outfit it's a flashback to me dressing up as Santa for 3 years in a row.
When I was a public school teacher back in Korea.
Fun times.
Balloons!
Alright, and we're back at the beginning.
So this is pretty much it, as you could see, it was just like a short maybe 2 to 3 blocks.
Not very long, but still very interesting.
And I hope you guys enjoyed this really really short walking video here in Hanoi's Old Quarter.
On Hàng Mã street. If you guys have any questions, leave them down below.
I'll answer them as best as I can. Follow me on social media (links in description box).
And Subscribe if you haven't! Thanks guys for watching and I'll see you in the next video, BYE!!!!