Recession Puts Crimp in Tet Festival Sales : Lunar New Year: For many Little Saigon businesses the period before the celebration normally is the most lucrative time of the year.

Nga Nguyen walked up and down the aisles of the Little Saigon Supermarket one recent evening, checking stacks of red boxes filled with sugar-coated coconut, water chestnuts, melons and other traditional goodies for the Lunar New Year. The 45-year-old Garden Grove woman finally settled on half a dozen small boxes of sugared fruits.

Like many Vietnamese families in Orange County, Nguyen and her family are shopping for food and gifts to help celebrate the Tet Festival that starts today. Last year, she bought twice as many boxes of sugared fruit to give away to friends and relatives.

But that was last year. Now prices are up and the economy is in recession, so she’s being more careful about how she spends her money.

For many businesses in Orange County’s Little Saigon district, the days leading up to the three-day Tet celebration are the most lucrative of the year, after the Christmas shopping season. But the district’s business people say sales are down this year as shoppers such as Nguyen cut back on spending.

Not all is gloom and doom, however. Although people seem to be buying fewer and cheaper items for the Tet festival, merchants say that they are seeing more bargain-hunting shoppers and that is helping to boost sales. David Tran, owner of the Little Saigon Supermarket, has seen a 20% increase in sales the last two weeks.

But other merchants aren’t as lucky.

“The bad economic situation has led to a number of layoffs in the garment, electronics and aerospace industries,” said Tom Vo, an advertising executive at Nguoi Viet Inc., which publishes the daily Nguoi Viet newspaper in Westminster.

According to Le Dinh Dieu, Nguoi Viet’s president, layoffs have affected a significant number of people in the Vietnamese community who represent a lot of buying power. And families hurt in other ways by the recession seem to be keeping spending to a minimum, he said.

Some local merchants say their operating costs have been climbing since summer, when the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait sent fuel prices soaring, Vo said. This makes it tough for business owners to keep prices down and be competitive, he said.

Hair salons and barber shops, usually in high demand this time of the year, complain that they’re not seeing as many people as in past years. This is unusual because it is a traditional practice among the Vietnamese and Chinese to get a haircut for the New Year, said Kim Le, owner of Luxury Hair Design & Beauty Supply on Bolsa Avenue. The haircut is meant to symbolize a new life and a new beginning.

Kim Le blames the economic slowdown for a downturn in business, saying people are either going elsewhere for a cheaper haircut or skipping the holiday tradition altogether.

Some businesses have cut prices to bring in more customers, said Vo, the Nguoi Viet executive. Officials at the nearby An Minh Supermarket and 99 Tawa Supermarket on Bolsa Avenue began trimming prices on their holiday candies earlier this week. A 99 Tawa official said the recession is just part of the problem.

“We’ve been getting a lot of competition from smaller local supermarkets in the area, and it’s getting more difficult to grow in this market,” said Lin-Yung Tsang, manager of 99 Tawa which was started by a Taiwanese immigrant in 1985.

He said sales are off by about 20% the past few months because of the rising costs of importing foodstuffs from Taiwan, Hong Kong and elsewhere in Asia.

The Tet festival falls on a weekend this year, but that won’t do a lot to lift sagging sales of some businesses, said Nguoi Viet’s Le. Businesses traditionally close for the holidays, and Vietnamese spend the days visiting friends and relatives, he said.

A few merchants in Little Saigon are thriving though. In the weeks leading up to the lunar holidays, Tran’s Little Saigon Supermarket advertised aggressively on cable television, radio and newspapers, calling his supermarket, a “one-stop grocery for all Vietnamese families.”

Florists are doing a brisk business too. Bolsa Florist, for example, saw its daily sales rise fivefold in the last two weeks.

“Business is blooming,” said owner Da Ly. “Flowers are in such demand that even hawkers sell them on the sidewalks.”

Ly’s teen-age daughter, Mai, said it’s easy for Vietnamese to forgo such things as haircuts and fancy holiday foods, but Vietnamese traditionally place flowers in their homes during Tet as a gesture of goodwill to friends and relatives.

“People can always prepare the traditional dishes at home to save money, but not everyone can grow flowers for the holidays,” she said. “What also helped us is that Valentine’s Day happens to fall on New Year’s Eve.”