NEW YEAR

While we may still be celebrating our New Year's beginning, the Chinese are just now preparing theirs.  We use the Gregorian calendar and the Chinese and other Asians use a lunar calendar. 

According to the lunar calendar, the new year begins at the full moon between our January 21 and February 20.  This year it will begin on January 25. 

The Chinese Zodiac lists our 2019 as the Year of the Pig.  2020 will be the Year of the Rat.  I was born in a Year of the Rooster.

The Vietnamese use a lunar calendar.  In 1968, the new year began on January 28.  They call their new year "Tet".  The North Vietnamese used that occasion to begin a devastating military offensive against the South - forever known as the "Tet Offensive".  Luckily, I had just come home a few months before.