Everything about Tet Holiday — Vietnamese Lunar New Year
Tết Nguyên Đán or also still called the lunar New Year or more commonly known by its shortened name Tết of Vietnamese is the most important festival in a year in Vietnam. It marking the arrival of spring based on the Lunar calendar. The name Tết Nguyên Đán is Sino-Vietnamese for Feast of the First Morning. The Vietnamese believe that Tet Holiday is an occasion to enjoy life after a full hard-working year, thus people forget their struggles and focus on making the celebration as festive as possible. Due to the high regard in which people hold it. Let’s take a look at some traditions and customs typical of this special holiday in Vietnam.
Go To Temple
At the beginning of the year. Many families choose to go to the temple to pray for peace and luck for the new year. This is also the occasion for many festivals to be held. It makes your feeling be comfortable and you can see the river, mountains, and forests.
Vietnamese believe in the harmony of nature so every shrine, temple and pagoda is always built within nature like on mountain, by the river/stream, etc. Furthermore, most of Vietnamese religious building (except for Christianity) tend to bend Buddhism, Taoism and indigenous religions together so they are considered highly sacred, seeking spirituality rather than emphasising on the architecture and size. Most of Vietnamese temples are small YET SUBTLE in terms of the decorating.
Food
Vietnamese people have their traditional cake ( bánh chưng) and other traditional food (nem, xôi, canh măng, giò,…). And of course, you can’t celebrate Tet holiday’s feast without boiled chicken.
Home Decorations
Vietnamese decorate their house with hoa đào (peach blossom tree) or hoa mai (a type of tree with yellow flowers). They don’t usually use red lattern or paper cuttings
Giving Lì xì (lucky money)
In Vietnam, the lucky money is given to kids by adults. We Still giving lucky money to the elderly as well.
Traditions
On the first day of Tet, we have a tradition called “xông nhà”. We believe that the first visitor of the year will determine the fortune and luck for the entire year, so this person must be selected carefully. Chinese people don’t have this custom.
The Vietnamese believe that Tet Holiday is an occasion to enjoy life after a full hard-working year, thus people forget their struggles and focus on making the celebration as festive as possible. Due to the high regard in which people hold it. At this time almost of members of families gather together in this new year to happy New Year, and although these members work very far from their homeland where their parents live but they still come back home to take part in this New Year with their families at their homeland, this is the traditional habit and custom of Vietnamese, it has been lasted so far.
