Vietnamese Tet (Tet Nguyen Dan)
T?t festival or Tet Nguyen Dan.
Time: From the last day of previous year to 3rd day of 1st lunar month
T?t, is the most important and popular holiday and festival in Vietnam. It is the Vietnamese New Year which is based on the Lunar calendar, a lunisolar calendar.
T?t is celebrated on the same day as Chinese New Year though exceptions arise due to the one-hour time difference between Hanoi and Beijing. It takes place from the first day of the first month of the Chinese calendar (around late January or early February) until at least the third day. There are a lot of customs practiced during T?t, like visiting a person’s house on the first day of the new year, ancestral worshipping, wishing New Year’s greetings, giving lucky money to children and old people and opening a shop.
T?t is also an occasion for pilgrims and family reunions. During T?t, Vietnamese visit their relatives and temples, forgetting about the troubles of the past year and hoping for a better upcoming year. They consider T?t to be the first day of spring and the festival is often called spring festival.
Vietnamese people usually return to their families during T?t. Some return to worship at the family altar or visit the graves of their ancestors in their homeland. Although T?t is a national holiday among all Vietnamese, each region and religion has its own customs.
During Tet, Vietnamese families usually have a family altar, to pay respect to their ancestors. Vietnamese families have a tray of five fruits on their altar called “Ng? Qu?”, including banana, orange, kumquat, pomelo and finger citron. Each fruit conveys a different meaning. Pomelos promise a lucky and sweet year. Banana and finger citron symbolize a protective hand while kumquats and oranges represent success and prosperity.
On the first day of T?t is reserved for the nuclear family. Children receive a red envelope containing money from their elders. This tradition is called m?ng tu?i (happy new age). Usually, children wear their new clothes and give their elders the traditional T?t greetings before receiving the money. And Vietnamese believe that the first visitor a family receives in the year determines their fortune for the entire year, people never enter any house on the first day without being invited first. The act of being the first person to enter a house on T?t is called xông ??t, xông nhà or ??p ??t, which is one of the most important rituals during T?t. According to Vietnamese tradition, if good things come to the family on the first day of the lunar New Year, the entire following year will also be full of blessings.
At T?t every house is usually decorated by Hoa Mai (Ochna Integerrima), Hoa Dao (Peach Flower), Vietnamese people also decorate their homes with bonsai and flower plants such as Hoa Cuc (Chrysanthemum), Van Tho (Marigold)…, or displays Cay Neu – an artificial New Year Tree onsisting of a bamboo pole 5 to 6 m long.
For the food in Tet, each family cooks special holiday foods such as bánh ch?ng and bánh d?y. Preparations for these foods are quite extensive. Some traditional food on T?t are:
- Bánh ch?ng and bánh d?y: essentially tightly packed sticky rice with meat or bean fillings wrapped in banana leaves. Bánh ch?ng (rectangular) and bánh gi?y (circular) are symbolically connected with T?t and are essential in any T?t celebration. Preparation is time-consuming, and can take days to cook. The story of their origins and their connection with T?t is often recounted to children while cooking them overnight.
- H?t D?a: roasted watermelon seeds, also eaten during T?t.
- D?a Hành”: picked onion and picked cabbage.
- M?t: These dried candied fruits are rarely eaten at any time besides T?t…..
People can also visit fortune tellers, in temples and in the streets, to have their fortunes told. You must know your zodiac sign and the star you were born under to have your fortune read. Whether the fortunes are taken seriously depends entirely on the person receiving the fortune and the reputation of the fortune teller.
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