While there was no parade, a number of people still took off of work or left early to start their liquid diets for St. Patty's. O'Brien's is one of the few Irish bars in Ho Chi Minh City. It is owned by a French Vietkieu and was packed with a lot of Westerners.
The owner had a lucky draw (i.e., raffle) with prizes donated by the local Friends of Ireland. Because it was so packed, and my friend knew the owner, we ended up sitting at his table. As people came in, he would try to stop them to give a raffle ticket. It turned out to be an interesting social experiment - many assumed he was a local trying to pawn/sell them something, some ignored him and kept walking, a good number couldn't believe that the tickets were free and took out their wallets, and one woman actually thought he was trying to give her his bill to pay.
Near the door, people would deposit their helmets on a table. Throughout the night, the table would go through periods of being emptied and replenished of helmets. As we were leaving around midnight, I noticed that they were thinning out. As if crossing a street wasn't a challenge already, it occurred to me that a drunk driver on a scooter somehow had to be more dangerous than one behind the wheel of a car.
We did end up winning a fishing excursion in the Saigon River, which is the equivalent of fishing off of the Hudson River. It's a toss up as to whether you would catch polluted fish or a dead body. Guess that's the luck of the Irish, mate.
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