This is what happened today

Nathan is not a morning person, but this morning he woke up uncharacteristically chipper. We went out last night with his brother Heath, who is visiting, and some friends. We had drunk rice wine at Chim Sao, and then beers at GC and then more beers at whatever that place is called next door to GC, and then cocktails at Southgate. And yet this morning Nathan leapt up like a sprightly little liquor-loving deer. More precisely, he was like a sprightly little liquor-loving deer concerned with home cleanliness: he got up, got dressed and said he needed to put the rubbish out, at 9am. He disappeared out the door, assuring me the bin was "very smelly" and needed seeing to immediately.

He came back upstairs to tell me that it seemed today was "a special day", and that there were exciting things happening at the pagoda. I suggested that I would celebrate the "special day" by continuing to lie in bed. 

And then we both heard the sound of a boisterous brouhaha lion on the street.

My favourite Vietnamese tradition is the lion dance. You can hear them coming thanks to the drums and cymbals that parade along with them, luring people out of their houses to watch the performance and feed the lion lucky money. The dancers endow the lion with so much playful personality that this furry, bedazzled and pom-pommed creature really does seem alive. Last year, during the Mid-Autumn Festival, when the lions dance through the streets almost every night, there were information display screens along the road near our lake explaining their significance to Vietnamese culture. They referred to them as "boisterous brouhaha lions", which is just the most perfect description. They do create a brouhaha, and they are boisterous. Umm, and they are lions, yes. That too.

And so, knowing I could not resist the lure of a boisterous brouhaha lion on our street, Nathan bundled me out of bed. "Quick!" he said. "Get dressed! We'll miss it!" I threw on some clothes and with bed-head and hungover eyes, said I should have just done as the Vietnamese do, and wandered out in my pyjamas. As we made our way out, I told Heath he was pretty lucky to witness such a perfect little cultural vignette on only his second day in Hanoi. 

Our neighbours were gathered in the street, coaxing the lion over to them by waving 10,000 dong notes, which he'd snap up in his flapping mouth like the Cookie Monster. 

He was a delightfully playful kitty, this one, rushing towards you then lowering his big fluffy head for a scratch behind his ear. 

As Nathan manages to do when presented with any child or animal, he made the lion particularly frisky. If there was an information display sign written about Nathan it would probably describe him as a "boisterous brouhaha Nathan". He teased and tousled it, and the lion responded by prancing around him, leaping in the air, creeping backwards, and then barreling towards him; I was reminded of how on windy days our family cat used to work itself up into a frisky frenzy by running up and down the hallway and then rolling itself up in the rug. Laughing too much to take any decent photos, I was also reminded of how much I love boisterous brouhaha things, be they lions or Nathans.

The lion then stepped away from us, and pulled his big head close into his body, arching up. "Uh-oh", I said to Heath. "It's like when cats do that backwards wretching thing before they vomit". 

And then the lion vomited. 

He vomited a diamond ring into Nathan's hand. 

An enormous cheer went up, and applause; there was a crashing explosion of cymbals and drums; and the lion threw his head back and danced wildly. Nathan got down on one knee, and I was half-blind from the tears and half-deaf from the sobs. He picked me up and twirled me around and around and around, and all I could see was a blur of red fur and gold sequins and all I could hear was the brouhaha and all I could think was "yes".

Our neighbours came to congratulate us and shake our hands, always using both their hands to clasp ours so firmly. A teenager who could speak English translated their well wishes for us. They all said they had never seen anything like this happen before to anyone else. I agreed that it was a most singular thing to happen to a person before breakfast on a rainy Sunday.

The crowd dispersed, the lion undressed and while still reeling from it all, a family across the road invited us to their house for tea. We sat in their loungeroom, me with Nathan's grandmother's ring on my finger, drinking cups of green tea and glasses of this indescribable drink of sour fruit that the Vietnamese so love, and eating longans and yoghurt, listening to the story of the happy, twenty-year marriage of our hosts, both born in the year of goat, just like me and Nathan.