Photos: Vietnamese hunt rare items for Tet gifts

People are seeking special and rare things for the upcoming Lunar New Year (Tet holiday). Among them are peacocks, odd-shaped fruits, and Dong Tao chickens. Below are expensive and unusual Tet gifts this year:

VietNamNet Bridge – People are seeking special and rare things for the upcoming Lunar New Year (Tet holiday). Among them are peacocks, odd-shaped fruits, and Dong Tao chickens.

The peacock is a special gift for this Tet holiday.

Farmers in the Mekong Delta are busy creating "strange" and "unique" fruits for Tet , which falls in early February next year.

Vo Trung Thanh, chairman of a farmers club in Hau Giang Province that creates fruits in unusual shapes and dubbed the "King of bottle gourd grapefruit", said his club would supply 10,000 grapefruits shaped like a bottle gourd and with the words Tai-Loc (Wealth-Good Fortune).

Besides, 1,000 grapefruits with the Vietnam map showing Paracel and Spratly Islands would be sold for the first time, but due to teething troubles, farmers could only achieve 40 per cent of the targeted number, he said.

Though productivity has been hit somewhat by unfavourable weather, the prices of the fruits are expected to be the same as last year, he said.

Grapefruits with Tai-Loc on them will thus cost VND300,000 to VND800,000 (US$13.3 to $35.5), and those with the Viet Nam map, VND1.2 million ($53.4).

Tran Thanh Liem of Can Tho City said he plans to sell around 600 pairs of gold-bullion watermelons and 200 pairs of square watermelons.

He expected to harvest the fruits 15 days before the Lunar New Year on February 8.

Many companies wanted to place big orders for the watermelons, but he had to turn them down and only took deposits from customers who wanted to buy 15-20 pairs, he said.

Watermelons depend too much on the weather, and any unseasonable rain causes their roots and leaves to rot, he said.

In past years these two kinds of watermelons, especially those weighing under three kilogrammes, were in great demand in the northern market and HCM City.

Liem said a pair of gold-bullion watermelon with the word Tai or Loc fetched VND2.5 million to VND3 million ($111.3 to $133.57) a pair depending on their weight, and square watermelons weighing 1.7 kilogrammes cost VND1.1 million ($48.9) a pair.

In addition to the unique fruits, farmers have also created many unique ornamental trees for Tet.

At Nam Cong Flower Establishment in Ben Tre Province, owned by Nguyen Van Cong, one of the first artisans to create animal-shaped ornamental trees in Viet Nam, around 20 permanent employees have been busy the last several months shaping ornamental trees like animals.

Since 2016 is the Year of the Monkey, Nam Cong plans to launch market monkey-shaped ornamental trees priced at around VND2 million ($88.9) each.

Meanwhile, in Dong Thap Province's Lai Vung District, which is famous for its Lai Vung pink mandarin, farmers have grown hundreds of pots of pink mandarin to supply to the market.

Luu Van Rang, for instance, said he would sell around 450 at VND1.5-5 million each.

Traders have placed deposits to buy all 450, he said.

Below are expensive and unusual Tet gifts this year:

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