Year of the Poodle Dog and Pony Show

Lucky enough, for work-based reasons, to be at the Viet New Year's Parade today. Not unusually? I took some photos.

This here woman was Miss Saigon (2005? 2006? Can't remember) and was pretty luminous.



There was also a Miss Hanoi running around and I wondered if that was just a different beauty contest for Northerners, or if it had something to do with the (still) ongoing hassles between the two Vietnamese 'sides' of the Vietnam War? I am far too wise to ask that question in a venue such as I was in. ;-)

And the Dragons were pretty spectacular:





the whole thing was sponsored by NBC Channel 11 and they had a nice music float with a very rhythmic dude pumping away (which sounds like a blurb for a gay porno):



finally, I found it funny that the whole thing was about "traditional" Vietnamese culture (it was interesting to see the old soldiers too shrunken to fit their old wartime uniforms) and yet I could turn almost anywhere and take a shot of:



If they aren't careful they are going to turn Korean! (With that said, the woman in this picture really looked Indian to me and I wondered if she had wandered in from some other parade).

But it is established that I am a bad man.