Tet

Ted. Most of East Asia celebrates the beginning of the new year as determined by a traditional Chinese calendar. This year, it falls on February 17. In Vietnamese, the holiday is called Tet Nguyen Dan, but everyone simply says Tet. 

 

As near as I can tell, Tet is sort of like Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year’s Day and the Day of the Dead all rolled into two weeks of preparations and three days of celebrations. 

When we made our travel plans for this trip, we were completely unaware that we would be in Vietnam for the festival. Not only that, we were actually flying from Da Nang (the airport close to Hoi An) to Hanoi on February 17. 

So, we witnessed most of the preparation work while we were in Hoi An and now we are observing the celebrations in Hanoi. 

During much of this time, a good many businesses and government offices operate with reduced staff and hours or just close all together. Schools are closed all of this week and it is tough to find a restaurant, grocery store or shop that is open. Those that are open typically charge a 15% or so premium price. 

The focus for the Vietnamese people is on ancestor veneration, relaxation, family reunions and visits with friends. 

The first thing we noticed two weeks ago in Hoi An was the smoke. We ended up closing the windows in our hotel room at night and turning on the air conditioning at night. What was the source? As we walked the streets, we saw tiny piles of ashes in front of all of the homes and shops. 

The Vietnamese believe that their ancestors have the same needs and desires that they have. If the living want new clothes, so do the ancestors. How can one help one’s ancestors to be more comfortable? By buying and then burning clothes, food and money for them. But the gifts aren’t real, they are paper effigies. Yes, you can buy fake money, clothes and food made of paper. If you really love your ancestors, you do it every day leading up to Tet. 

The other thing we saw was lots of cleaning, cooking and decorating with flowers. Huge amounts of special holiday foods are prepared or purchased for days in advance because family and friends will be visiting every day. 

Before and after the actual day of Tet, there is a lot of celebration which includes feasting with friends and family and visiting temples and pagodas to ask for blessings and fortunes. 

In Hoi An and Hue during the preceding days, and now in Hanoi, we have seen hundreds of ladies dressed up and posing for photos with flowers, especially peach blossoms, which are symbols of fertility. 

Children look forward to Tet because their elders hand out red (the lucky color) envelopes stuffed with lucky money. Since school is out the kids often race to toy shops that remain open to assist them in spending their lucky money. 

These people work very hard for 51 weeks of the year with precious little time off and poor wages. It is wonderful to see how happy everyone is now. They all look for signs of good luck (like a little rain on the first day of the new year) and pray they will have good luck in the future. They seem very fatalistic and seem to believe that their futures are not in their control - something that is a little alien to me. So I just tell folks I wish that all of their dreams come true and say “Chuc mung nam moi!” (Happy New Year!).