A letter to the peach blossom on my table

Orange, CA 92866

February 1st, 2022 – The first day of Lunar New Year. Mung mot Tet.

Dear my tiny branch of peach blossom,

I have a tiny branch of peach blossom on my table – you are staring at me right now, supposing the buds are your eyes, which is a bit creepy for me tonight to think of this way. I don’t have any ceramic vase to put you in, so I’m sorry for currently placing you in a plastic orange juice bottle. I built a fort around you with my bottles of supplements and vitamin tablets, though the most nourishing vitamin is not them. “I have to keep it safe. I have to keep it alive,” as I talked to myself and you - my little vitamin H: Vitamin Hoa, Vitamin Hanoi, Vitamin Home.

Never in my life have I ever thought I would have a flower vase on my desk, although it’s not even a proper vase. I have never been a flower person. I am still not. But why am I looking at you the way I am right now? Why I’m so eager to wake up every morning for the past 3 days just to see how much the little buds have opened? They have not wakened up yet, but I’ll wait. I’ll wait. For the flowers? Maybe. People say the blooming peach blossoms are gorgeous, but they perish quickly as if beauty is not something to be devoured. The more you are excited about something, the faster it comes and goes, sometimes before you realize it. I’m waiting for your full bloom, which means I’m also waiting for your decay. I did burn the roots before putting in the water, following the folk tips, to keep you fresh longer – but isn’t it true that I have dictated your end before you even begin? I took the picture the branch yesterday and sent it to my best friend who is also not home – he’s in Canada. He laughed at me and resignedly smiled, “A little effort to make something exist, but it is actually not there?”. He’s right. I’m waiting for a thing that would never come – I’m not waiting for you. I’m waiting for the things you often bring along, but this time you don’t.

Peach blossom is the signature flower of Tet – Vietnamese’s Lunar New Year, especially in the Northern area. People often say, “Whenever you see peach blossom on the street, Tet is coming.” No matter how busy people are that they forget to watch the calendar, the peach blossom will still come on time. It reminds people to stop whatever they are working on or busy with to return home – whether it is a place or a person. This time, I do see you, and I do watch the calendar a month ahead. But where is it – the thing I’m longing for?

Tet is more than just a holiday. It’s soaked in every single detail of everything. It must be felt by total of five senses, or maybe even six – I doubt if it’s ever enough.

Tet is the rush of the last three days before New Year’s Eve, when adults eventually finish their job of the old year; lock the office, twice or three times just to make sure, and go straight home for a marathon of cleaning and preparation. Tet is the cracking sound of people’s back after carrying the citrus tree pot from the yard inside the living room. Tet is the joy of going to flower markets and witnessing grandmothers and moms examine every single branch of peach blossom as if they are bidding for a legendary auction. Taking off the aprons, they suddenly become artists wandering in their favorite exhibition of the year where the masterpiece they purchase would decide the entire year’s luck of the family. Tet is the simultaneous laughs of the entire neighborhood watching Tao Quan – a Vietnamese annual TV satirical comedy broadcasted on Lunar New Year’s Eve – together.

Tet is the smell of La Mui – the leaf of a special plant which Vietnamese boil and uses that hot water to shower with before New Year Eve. It gets rid of the bad luck and dirty of the past year, giving you an irresistibly pleasant scent of relaxation. Tet is stroking your hair, soaking in your soft skin, running on your cheeks, hugging you wholly, warmly.

Tet is the taste of food. Food. It must be prohibited to describe food, as it’s never going to be accurate. Food must be tasted. Tet food is not just the boiled chicken taken down from the altar after the past ancestors have given the family luck for the year. It’s not just the noodles, the spring rolls, or the sticky rice. It’s the family gathering atmosphere – the caring “Eat this! You always look so pale” from grandma when she grabs piles of food in your bowl, even while you are still chewing a full mouth of food.

Tet is a spirit, a feeling, a yearly routine – an essential. As I’m watching you right now, I think of all these things. I miss it terribly, achingly. The list can keep going, but why am I still not feeling it? I’m twelve thousand three hundred sixty-three kilometers away from home – the homeland of Tet’s peach blossom. I’m not in the place where Tet is called Tet. My Tet is tasteless, colorless, and scentless. Is it still called Tet if nothing is here in the first place? The effort of bringing you home with me, is it pointless, or it’s still Tet? “Tet is soaked in everything,” but is everything Tet when standing in solitary?

“On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous” – I read that title from Ocean Vuong. Perhaps your brief gorgeousness is not nothing at all. It’s not everything, but it’s something.

It’s nothing in the place where we have everything; but it’s everything in the place we have nothing.

Thank you for standing here, watching me. This letter may never reach you, as tomorrow you may have either fully bloomed or already gone.

I will miss you dearly,

A Tet lover, and soon, perhaps next time, a flower person.