Tet is over and I sit in my home office right now once again listening to the annoying sounds of hammers, people just pounding on things, using circular saws to cut tiles, and my most hated, the dreaded rotary cement-drill. These all stopped for about 10 days over Tet and I rejoice every time that happens. I truly embrace the reduced activity as it seems nearly every Vietnamese person goes somewhere in the countryside or something and spends a very long time partying with family.
I wonder if the countryside is just roaringly loud over that time? hmmmm. I'll have to look into that.
[src](https://vcdn1-vnexpress.vnecdn.net/2024/02/10/ANH-1112-1707536305.jpg?w=460&h=0&q=100&dpr=1&fit=crop&s=krUXmtKXERtpcbYWoLaX2g)While I have only ever been in Danang for Tet, I have heard stories and read them about how all the big cities go majorly quiet during these times. The people who choose not to celebrate Tet probably enjoy the relatively empty streets and the quiet just as much as I do... but there is one really weird side-effect of all this and that is that the entire country's supply chain is disrupted by this nationwide very long holiday.
Most of the stores that I go to are out of everything that is fresh such as fruits and vegetables and other staples that have some shelf life such as meat, eggs, and milk has long since been sold out. Bread disappeared a while ago and hasn't yet returned and the only thing that remains in most of the minimarts are things that aren't food or things that do not spoil like instant noodles and canned drinks. Even some of the more niche brands of canned drinks have gone out of stock and haven't been replenished.
There are some bakeries here in town that wanted to take advantage of being one of the only shops that is open and therefore make more money but speaking to a guy that has a sandwich shop he told me that all the bakeries eventually shut down as well because they were unable to get the ingredients that they use to make their products.
I noticed the other day while I was cycling that one of the gas stations was shut at a busy intersection. It turns out that they have run out of fuel and the delivery wont arrive until days later.
A number of restaurants that did stay open during Tet now have signs out in front saying that they are closed due to lack of supplies.
It kind of makes sense doesn't it? Even if you decide to stay open the people who are supplying you aren't going to be able to so once you burn through whatever it is that you do have in stock you have no choice but to close because you have nothing to sell. One of the bars that I frequent bought 3x as much of the popular local lager called Huda that he normally would before the Tet shutdown and came dangerously close to running out of that before the distributor opened back up on Monday.
When I was trying to order something to eat over the break it didn't take long before some of the only options were the international chain stores and after a few days a great deal of their menus were blacked out because they too had run out of certain ingredients that are involved in making of whatever burger or pizza that it was.
[src](https://file.hstatic.net/200000077081/file/cua-hang-thuc-pham-sach-moonmilk-sai-gon_c0b52327464d465f8de98a2af756d163_grande.jpg)None of this really impacted me a huge amount because I stocked up on frozen steak before the shutdown but it did kind of open my eyes as time went by about how close the quickly the city I live in, and perhaps every city in the world, would run out of food if there was a massive disruption in the food chain supply. A good many of the people who normally live here weren't even around because they left for the holiday and yet it took less than 10 days for us to run out of basically everything. I can't even imagine what would happen if there was something like a war getting in the way of logistics.
I don't think that will happen in Vietnam anytime soon though... just ask the Chinese, the French, or the Americans how good of an idea it is to invade Vietnam.
Now the stores are starting to have everything on the shelves again but to me, coming from the west where the "wheels" never really stop turning in industry, it just seems rather odd that an entire country including all businesses would just totally shut down for weeks.