Dear Friends… New Year greetings from Saigon, Uncle Bob
Our own gift envelopes
This letter is being posted as Bob Irwin is flying home to Sydney - he will return to Vietnam to join the 20 years' anniversary celebrations
I hope 2023 has got off to a good start for you and yours. When you read this, I may be already in Oz, as I am due back in Sydney on the 10th January. Hopefully, after some months in Australia, helping out where I can, especially with the Institute and schools, I will head back to Vietnam in August once again.
2023 is already looking like a busy year for MSC Vietnam. I t is the 20th anniversary year, which hopefully will include registration with the government here, the completion of some 30 bedrooms in the student house, several ordinations in June, and major celebrations for the anniversary especially on August 15, which will also include a number of students taking their final vows. If you have any thoughts on visiting Vietnam soon, try for August 15!
For my family it will be the year of the big O (with apologies to Roy Orbison…only the Oldies will get this). My sister Helen turns 80, her son Ben goes to 50, and in May, Phil Hicks and I will celebrate 50 years of priesthood. All this with the 20 years for Vietnam, and also 20 years for Chevalier Institute.
Currently the students are finishing exams, as their semester races towards their TET holidays. Vietnam has new year twice: Jan 1 and then TET (similar to Chinese New Year). At TET, as many people as possible head back to their home towns and family, and our guys are no exception. One of the customs around TET time includes the gifting of money in red envelopes, and because I will not be here then, I “had to” give out “red” envelopes (MSC ones by Tinh) at my farewell on Sunday 1st. Cost me 3,000,000…30 envelopes with 100,000 in each! VN dong, of course….c$5/6 Aust. each…all part of the fun.
Christmas here is a mixed bag. Christmas decorations are everywhere, Catholics celebrate as we might in Oz, but the country doesn’t stop. Some schools have a day off, some don’t! The MSC students had a beautiful vigil liturgy on Christmas eve, then a large gathering of MSC, MSC sisters and OLSH and lay MSC, were all guests at a beautiful new home of one of the Lay MSC for a house blessing, Christmas mass, and huge noisy catered lunch, which included gift giving, Santa’s helpers etc …exhausting, but quite a hoot!
My Cambodia trip for the final visa included the usual bribes, but I saw something different here in Saigon recently: police pulling over mainly smaller trucks and measuring them with a tape measure…odd, I thought, but then I read later that more than 70,000 vehicles in Saigon and surrounds did not pass registration, including for size discrepancies, but with bribes they did.Yikes!
Lots of love. Take care, God bless your year. See you very soon. (Uncle) Bob