In Vietnam, SMU student Nguyen Son Nam usually celebrates Lunar New Year with a big bang. This year, he did his countdown here instead, watching the River Hongbao 2013 fireworks with friends in the Marina Bay area. He chose to stay here for Chinese New Year to see what the celebrations would be like. He planned to spend the first day of the lunar new year with a local Chinese family of four, whom he met through SMU's International Connections programme.