Many men go shopping for Tet with clear goals, a neat list, and minimal time. They enter the supermarket with sharp eyes just to solve work. Go straight to the shelves, hold the familiar brand, do not compare for more than three seconds, do not pick up and drop down. For them, anything is fine, but alcohol, beer and snacks cannot be missing. Tet is an opportunity to take advantage of the holiday, take advantage of "sweating" to compensate for the whole year of driving all day, working hard. Men shop with functional logic: Buy to use.
But women are at a completely different extreme. Going to the Tet market, women not only ask for prices, but also care about the color, attractiveness, and strangeness of the item. They can stand still for ten minutes just to hesitate between the two types of watermelon seeds, not because it is expensive or cheap, but because they hesitate to see which color watermelon seeds will stand out more under the lights of the living room.
Yesterday afternoon at the supermarket, you saw a couple shopping for Tet together. The husband picked up a set of pure white bowls and plates, quickly asked: "Is this okay, honey? Cheap, durable, clean". The wife looked over and shook her head: "Too white, looks very cold, honey. You have to choose this set with gold trim, to worship on New Year's Eve, looking at it will warm the incense sticks, will have fortune". The husband nodded to listen to his wife but also stuck out a sentence: "It's true that women always make up stories.
Men ask: "Is it necessary?". Women ask: "Is it lacking?". "Need" is the minimum level to maintain life. "Lack" is a feeling of incompleteness. And Tet, in the end, is the season of emotions rather than reason.
That's why women often... buy extra. A few extra packs of candies, a box of cakes, a box of beer, even extra items in case of unexpected guests. Men look at piles of things piled up like mountains, shake their heads, muttering: Who will eat them all? And women just laugh: Tet is here, it's better to have extra than to let guests come to the house and lack!
Behind that saying is a silent worry: Afraid that I am not thoughtful enough, afraid that the family's Tet will look sloppy and temporary. Because even if the whole year is bumpy, Tet must still be full and warm.
It turns out, women don't shop for them. They buy peace of mind for their husbands, buy joy for their children and buy a warm "face" for the whole family. And men should be grateful for those lovely "storytellings", because if they lack their meticulousness, Tet will only be dry holidays, instead of a warm and meaningful reunion season.
