Nana had never been outside Thailand before.
So when her father announced they’d be visiting Vietnam as a family over school break, Nana was so excited she couldn’t sleep the night before they left.
The first town they visited was Hoi An, an ancient riverside town famous for its colorful lanterns.
“Tonight is the lantern festival,” her mother told her. “On every full moon, they release lanterns onto the river.”
Nana’s eyes went wide. She quickly tucked away her scarf and followed her parents down the narrow, smoothly-paved streets. On either side, red, yellow, and green lanterns hung in clusters from the old houses.
The crowds were thick, and everyone held a lantern in their hands.
Nana turned this way and that, dazzled by the colorful lights, until she accidentally bumped into a girl holding an orange lantern.
The two of them looked at each other. The Vietnamese girl, with straight black hair, smiled and said something Nana couldn’t understand.
“Sorry about that,” Nana said in Thai, then laughed at herself for speaking a language the other girl didn’t know.
The girl laughed too, then pointed to the lantern in her own hand. “Lồng đèn,” she said.
“Lantern,” Nana said in Thai, pointing to her own lantern as well.
The two of them laughed again. Different languages, but somehow they understood each other.
The girl’s name was Linh. She nodded for Nana to follow her, leading her toward the riverbank where crowds stood packed together.
The river was covered in lanterns of every color, floating on the water’s surface, their light reflecting in beautiful streaks — as if stars had fallen right into the river.
Linh handed Nana the orange lantern, then pointed at the water.
Nana understood immediately. She knelt down and gently placed the lantern on the water’s surface, letting it go. The orange lantern floated slowly away, joining hundreds of thousands of others.
Nana stood watching for a long time, feeling calm and warm all at once.
Before they parted, Linh wrote something in Nana’s notebook, in Vietnamese. Nana went back and asked her father to translate it.
Her father read it aloud: “A good friend doesn’t need to speak the same language.”
Nana read the sentence twice, then smiled.
That night, she fell asleep with the image of the orange lantern floating in her mind,
knowing that no matter where in the world you go, if you’re willing to smile and open your heart, you will always find a friend.
Fun facts about Vietnam: The Hoi An Lantern Festival is held on the night of every full moon. Residents turn off their electric lights and light lanterns instead. The town was recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1999.
