Today is Chinese New Years, but it also happens to be Tet — the Vietnamese New Year. A lot of Americans never heard of Tet before the Vietnam War, and the Viet Cong offensive in 1968. Tet is often associated with the Vietnam War, but it’s an ancient festival that, unfortunately, only became widely known in the west, due to the war.
Tet Nguyen Dan — Tet, for short — is the biggest and most popular holiday of the year in Vietnam. It is celebrated on the first day of the first month of the Lunar Calendar, but lasts for several days. This year, Tet is February 19 (today) but the actual holiday will last 1 day before and about 3-5 days after today. In fact, a new Vietnamese restaurant that just opened here, started their celebration yesterday. This year Tet and the Chinese New Year fall on the same day — that’s not always the case, but they are always close because they’re both based on the Lunar Calendar. Referring to our calendar, the (Lunar) new year usually starts in late January or the beginning of February.
Tet is the occasion when Vietnamese express their respect and remembrance for their ancestors as well as ringing in the new year with their family members. In the past, Tet provided one of the few long breaks during the agricultural year — it fell between the harvesting of the crops and the sowing of the next ones. Tet is like a combination of our Christmas and New Year; families get together to have big meals, decorate Tet trees and eat Tet food to welcome the New Year. There isn’t the direct religious association with Tet that we have with Christmas, although the holiday does play an important role in the Vietnamese’s religious beliefs.
Vietnamese begin preparations for Tet well in advance — in an effort to get rid of any bad luck of the old year, people spend a few days cleaning their homes, and even repaint their houses. They decorate the house with kumquat trees, branches of peach blossom and other colorful flowers. Almost all the homes have an ancestral altar; that is decorated especially carefully and colorfully. Everyone, including the children, buy or make new clothes and shoes to wear on the first days of the New Year. People also try to pay all their debts and resolve all arguments among colleagues, friends and family members.
Vietnamese believe that the colors of red and yellow will bring good fortune, so you find those colors almost everywhere during the New Year celebration. People consider what they do on the dawn of Tet will determine their fate for the whole year, so everyone always smiles and behaves as nice as they can in the hope of a better year. Gifts are exchanged, much as we do on Christmas, and children receive lucky money — always in a red envelope.
A lot of these traditions may sound like a description of the Chinese New Year celebrations, but as they say, “same — not same.” Anyhow, Happy Tet, everyone. Yet another chance to get those resolutions back on track….
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