And then...I was disappointed...

Let me say right now that this was not a planned trip, in a real sense. My parents happened to see the Wollongong New Year Festival advertised in one of the Viet papers and decided to go. They did not tell me that we were going until 1 hour of the time to leave. Needless to say, I scrambled to get some music for the trip.
Now let me say furthur, that it is nothing like the Warwick Farm New Year Festival. It is my understanding that the Warwick Farm one is kind of like an open market. You go there, buy stuff, ride the rides and have some semblance of fun. I haven't been there yet, but it sounds good. So we thought "well the Wollongong one would be same, except smaller right?" It wasn't. It was more like a concert, where people sat down and enjoyed entertainment on stage. There was a small kitchen, selling food and drinks. For the Viet readers, just think of the Wollongong Festival as a cheap Paris-by-Night wannabe and you have a good idea of what the festival was like. Anyway...

We left home at like 4pm with a couple of friends and we got to the place at around 5-ish pm. It was being held in a hall or something and it had not opened yet, so we waited outside. Since the festival didn't start until 7pm, we were the first there. I went to KFC for some food while we waited. Eventually, people started to trickle in and we followed. The festival started with dragon dancing outside. It was done competently by some Aussies from some martial arts school. Of course, some might wonder if this was culturally acceptable, but the Wollongong Vietnamese community numbers at under a thousand, at best, so it was no biggie. So we got inside, and the speakers began to introduce some important people. We even got a mention! As visitors from the Vietnamese community of Sydney, who had been here since 5pm. Woot! But the number of Sydney visitors numbered at best under 15. One dude also thought it was like a market or something and he had a backpack ready to carry his essential items as trekked around the place. Well, shit.

So with the introductions over, the students at the local Viet school sang this song, "Bé chúc Tết", but it was just really bad lip-syncing. There were some dancing pieces and karaoke singing, before there was this competition between girls wearing the Viet dress, "aó dài". They were all under 12, but the 3-7 year old category had some adorably cute girls. Wait a minute. Did I just use "adorably cute" in a sentence? Damn. Anyway, we left just as the competition ended and the judges were adding up the scores. The festival was planned to end at 11pm but it was running like 30 minutes late, so we made an early exit.

It was nothing like what I expected, but I have to admit that they definately had spirit in that festival. I spent most of the time with my brother, since we didn't know any other kids of our age. There were a bunch of teenage Viet kids, but it was hard to tell, especially the girls. It's not that they were all ugly, there were quite a few that were good-looking, but you couldn't tell whether they were 12 or 17 or 19 or married. Most of them had little kids or siblings in tow and you couldn't make the decision whether they were with the kid brothers/sisters or that they were married. Age is such a deceptive thing, especially among Viets and other Asians, I guess. I'm regularly confused as much older that I really am. That why the older men keep offering me beers.

Well, it was alright. It wasn't spectacular but it wasn't completely bad. I enjoyed it and so did the rest of my family and friends. Except my brother. He thought it was crap.