The total shutdown of Vietnam during Tet leads to some food issues

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 extremely loud over that time? hmmmm. I'll have to look into that.

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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.

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There is a chain of small supermarkets here called Moon Milk that is a more upmarket place to shop that specializing in being a deli and a green-grocer (selling fresh fruit and veg) and I don't normally shop there because it is kind of a ripoff like Whole Foods but over Tet the Moon Milk locations that are nearest to my house both closed with signs indicating that they have run out of stock and will reopen on the 25th of Feb-which was yesterday.

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.

If one of the bakeries could find a way of carrying on for the 10 days they could seriously coin it. You would think the restaurants would have local fresh supplies from a local farmer or have an alternative arrangement because staying open is that important. This mind set would drive me crazy as there is no excuse or running out and would never support suppliers who left me high and dry.

i don't think you really have a choice here since everyone closes or even if they don't, one of their suppliers will close. I don't know much about bakeries but it seems to me like you could seriously stockpile supplies to make just basic bread, which is really all that people were looking for during those 10 days. One of my friends owns a sub shop and they were killing it right up until finding bread was basically impossible. So he shut as well.

10 days supply or two weeks supply of flour, yeast and the basic bread ingredients would not be that difficult to stock up with. 10 days of supplying fresh bread and rolls to customers who support you when others have nothing would be a game changer and whoever did this would be supported throughout the year.

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Wow, that is pretty crazy. It makes sense though as you say. I'm glad you were able to weather it okay. The good news is you pretty much know when it is coming every year so you can prepare for it if you are paying attention!

its remarkable to me how many people do not prepare for it at all. The ATM machines normally run out of cash by day 2 and are only now starting to have money in them again.

Wow, that is totally crazy. I am glad we don't have stuff like that here in the US.

because I stocked up on frozen steak before the shutdown

Showing your true US roots there.. 😀..., never heard of 'Tet', I will consider myself educated.

you've probably heard of the Tet offensive. Before living here that was the only time I had ever heard that word. It's just Vietnamese for "Lunar New Year." In Thailand they called it Chinese New Year.

That must be a real inconvenience. That sad though, I sometimes wish businesses would close over here for holidays.

This happened some 20 years ago(and prior). However, things changed. Nowadays people don't "go home" that much anymore. As most of the stores separate their celebrations by half day 😂 instead of close for 10 days straight, they opened half day for the rest of the month. But of course, some of those famous restaurants they can afford to NOT taking the advantage of new year celebration though, so they usually stay closed for the first and 2nd day, but they normally resume business on the 3rd day and choose to give a longer break after the 15th day full moon.

some places still stay closed the entire time here. To me it just seems nuts that they do that, especially small businesses that would benefit greatly by being open.