It was the day everyone turned a year older, regardless of their individual birthdates. It was Christmas and Thanksgiving all wrapped in one. To the joy of the hundreds of vendors that set up their stalls along every sidewalk, nook and cranny, it was the season for indulgences, large and small.

In a land of tiny inventories, capillary-thin supply lines and multi-generational customer relationships, the very idea of a pre-holiday sale was utterly foreign. 'Spend', not 'save', became the national byword as stall owners made the most of the skyrocketing demand. I wandered out to buy a soda from my favorite streetside vendor and found that prices had doubled since the previous day. When I returned a few minutes later with another bill, they had doubled again. The muted, tinkling background noise resolved itself; it was the sound of piggy banks being shaken to excess, and grinning shop owners counting their coins. Money had suddenly become cheap and spending it a matter of national pride.

The marketplace, already working overtime, outdid itself once the sun went down. Shoe stands became soda stalls and apothecaries sprouted handmade roulette wheels as the entire city emptied into the streets to join in the fun. Colorful, numbered wheels spun ceaselessly while bets were won and lost, coins tossed and darts thrown. On every corner rickety stages showcased aspiring singers, their sequined dresses glittering in the glaring lights.

I bought a slice of salted pineapple and wondered over to a nearby gaming stall. A decidedly unenthusiastic hamster sat under an inverted basket in the middle of a table. When the basket was raised, the noise and lights were supposed to send it bolting for shelter into one of the twenty numbered huts nearby. Prizes ranged from tiny plastic bags filled with a half dozen roasted peanuts to the plastic cereal box toys. Several excitable young ladies stood clutching shopping bags filled to bursting with such trinkets, while their knights-paramour sauntered in deadly earnest from one table to the next, exchanging fuzzy bills for an endless stream of darts and betting slips.

The next morning - New Year's Day - seemed unusually quiet after the week-long fuss. For the first time I saw Vietnamese appear en mass on the beach, the little girls dressed in their best print frocks and clinging to each other as they teetered across the sand in dressy heels. They played tag with the surf, scurrying after the receding waves like sandpipers until the water turned, then scrambling away, then dashing back again to retrieve the sandals the sand had sucked off their feet. Professional photographers congregated around the public fountains, and soon had long lines of customers waiting to pose, stiff-backed and unsmiling, for their yearly snapshot.