The newspaper article quoted below is about Ho Chi Minh City, but it's similar in Hanoi - if you take out the religious part because about the only thing you see up here are lights, trees and Santas. It's kind of depressing.
The festivities climax on Christmas Eve, when it seems that half the city's 9 million residents take to the streets for something akin to a holiday rave. Churches overflow for midnight Mass while Vietnamese outside drink beer and spray each other with fake snow. It can take two hours to travel a few miles in District One as everything comes to a virtual standstill.
"Vietnamese want to integrate the country with the international society," said Che Huyen Bao Vy, wearing reindeer antlers and angel wings at a holiday display outside another shopping center in District One. The 21-year-old college student, along with two other reindeer angels, stood next to a blue Santa.
"I don't practice the religion, but I enjoy the Western culture a lot," she said. "Christmas Day, the Christmas spirit, is happy. It's a Christmas-spirit thing."
