tet

January, February: Vietnamese New Year | Tet Nguyen Dan

Tet Nguyen Dan

Tết Nguyên Đán, often referred to simply as Tet, is the Vietnamese New Year. The New Year does not fall on the same date each year, although it’s always in January or February. There are similar celebrations in China, Japan, and Korea known as the Lunar New Year or the Spring Festival.

The holiday in Vietnam is officially three days, but is often celebrated for seven. Tet is regarded as one of the most important Vietnamese holidays. Tết Nguyên Đán literally means the first morning of the first day of the new period. It’s believed that the course of these few days will determine the path of the coming year. People stop their quarreling, children vow to behave, and families make special efforts to gather together.

Prior to the celebrations, homes are cleaned and painted. Cleaning during Tet is avoided so the good luck will not be “swept away.” New clothes are purchased and old debts are paid. People go to church or the pagoda and make offerings to the Kitchen God. Homes are decorated with bonsai trees and flowers, and kumquat trees are brought into the home. These trees represent the family and the hope for good fortune in the new year. Trees are selected with care to insure the leaves are healthy and that there is ripe fruit as well as green fruit ready to ripen.

Tet Nguyen Dan, Hoa Mai
yellow blooms of the Hoa Mai

Homes are decorated with the yellow apricot blossoms of the Hoa Mai in the south, while the rosy peach blossoms of the Hoa Dao are used in the North. The blossoms represent the spirit of Tet. They symbolize prosperity and well-being for the family. It’s believed the longer the blossoms last the more prosperous the family will be in the coming year.

During Tet, the Kitchen God departs the home to report on the family. To help protect the home during the absence of the Kitchen God, families erect a Cay Neu, a “New Years’ Tree.” A bamboo pole is planted in front of the home, all the leaves are removed, except a few at the top The pole is decorated with red paper. Red has long been associated with warding off evil spirits. The Cay Neu is taken down on the seventh day of Tet.

Deceased relatives are remembered during Tet. Families build alters with photographs, flowers, incense, money, and food. People also visit the gravesites of their deceased loved ones.

At midnight on New Years’ Eve, Le Tru Tich is held. The spirits of the old year are rushed out and the new spirits are welcomed. The streets are chaotic with everyone banging gongs and sounding off noisemakers to scare evil spirits away. Prior to 1995, firecrackers were set off by almost everyone, but in 1995 the government banned fireworks because the cost was financially prohibitive and the injury rate was soaring.

Traditions:

  • Cau Doi: a pair of sentences called parallels are written in black ink on red paper. They are hung in the living room. Parallels have equal numbers of words with contrasting or corresponding meanings and lines of verses and contain wishes for happiness, prosperity and longevity.
  • The first person to enter the home after the start of the New Year sets the precedence for the coming year. Many people will arrange to have a child or someone well-off enter the home minutes after the start of the New Year.
  • Cutting open a watermelon: the redder the flesh, the more luck the family will have in the New Year
  • The Mam Ngu Qua, the five-fruit tray, is placed on the ancestral altar, symbolizing the admiration and gratitude to their ancestors and to Heaven and Earth. The five fruits are symbolic of the five basic elements of Asian/Eastern philosophy: metal, wood, water, fire, and earth. The tray may hold five fruits or it may have more. It’s often in the shape of a pyramid. The fruits include bananas, watermelons, oranges, kumquats, coconuts, apples, persimmons, and tomatoes. The ones chosen have meaning: green bananas symbolize a wish for protection from supernatural powers and ancestors while watermelons show a desire for fertility, and kumquats for prosperity.
  • In the United States, women will often wear the colors of the Vietnamese flag, red and yellow, while men wear black.
Tet Nguyen Dan, Bánh chưng
Bánh chưng

Foods:

  • To celebrate Tet is to ăn Tết, literally “eat Tết.”
  • Bánh chưng and bánh tét: rice cakes with meat or beans wrapped in dong leaves or banana leaves. Bánh chưng is square-shaped, representing the Earth, while bánh tét is round, symbolizing the sky or moon.
  • Thịt Kho Nước Dừa: a traditional dish of pork belly and medium-boiled eggs stewed in a broth-like sauce made from coconut juice and nuoc mam (a dipping sauce).
  • Xôi Gấc: a red sticky rice that is lightly sweetened
  • roasted watermelon seeds
  • pickled foods like onion, cabbage, bean sprouts, and leeks
  • coconut candy

Upcoming Dates

  • 2024: February 10
  • 2025: January 29
  • 2026: February 17
  • 2027: February 6
  • 2028: January 26
  • 2029: February 13
  • 2030: February 3

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⇴ woman from wikipedia, (CC0 1.0) Public Domain Dedication; Hoa Mai from Prenn, wikipedia, (CC BY-SA 3.0), Banh chung from wikipedia, public domain

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